Bangladesh U19s travel to Sylhet Wednesday for Afghanistan one-dayers

Led by opening batsman Saif Hasan, the Bangladesh U-19 team are scheduled to travel to Sylhet Wednesday to take on Afghanistan U-19 side in a five-match one-day series. The Afghans are scheduled to reach Bangladesh on Monday. The visitor will lock horns with the home side in the first one-day on September 28 at Sylhet International Cricket Stadium. The second, third and fourth one-dayers will also be played at the same venue, on September 30, October 2 and 4 respectively. Both the teams will then travel to Dhaka for the fifth and final game in Mirpur’s Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on October 7. This series will be Bangladesh’s last bilateral one before the side take part in the U-19 Asia Cup in Malaysia this November, followed by the 2018 U-19 World Cup in New Zealand in January. Bangladesh U-19 captain Saif said he and his team have prepared well for the busy schedule.

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Also read: Bangladesh U19s to host Afghanistan

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“We have played six one-day matches with the BCB High Performance team and a few of us have played the first round in the National Cricket League also. So overall, we had good match preparation. Hopefully we will be able to do our job well in the one-day series and get good results for the team,” Saif told the media Tuesday. “As captain of the team, I will always like to win the series and given we are playing Afghanistan, our ambition will be for a whitewash. But we should not forget that they are a good side. Playing well against them should get us easy wins,” the Bangladesh U-19 captain added. Saif, who got picked by Khulna Titans for the BPL T20 2017, thinks combination of the experienced and new players in the Bangladesh U-19 team has taken good shape. However, the side want to take one step at a time. “World Cup is our target but like any other team, we want to take each game as it comes. Now it’s the Afghanistan series, followed by the Asia Cup. Taking one step at a time will make our job in the World Cup easy and give the team a good shape,” Saif explained.