Sports desk:

Bangladesh will be looking to leave behind their recent disastrous performance in the shortest format and start afresh when they take on Afghanistan in their opening Group B match of the ongoing T20 Asia Cup in Sharjah, UAE today.

The match is scheduled to start at 8:00pm Bangladesh Standard Time and will be telecast live by GTV and Nagorik TV.

Since the last year’s ICC T20 World Cup, Bangladesh witnessed a heavy downfall in their performance in the T20 format as they could win only two matches and suffer defeats in eight of 11 matches they played.

In order to change their fate, they brought back experienced all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan as the leader of the T20 side while they also appointed former Indian all-rounder Sridharan Sriram as the technical consultant of the T20 side before the Asia Cup.

The Bangladesh Cricket Board also named Afif Hossain as the deputy to Shakib just a few days before the tournament.

Still, Bangladesh will face a tough challenge in order to qualify from Group B to Super Four round as they will have to face Afghanistan and Sri Lanka in their group matches in a span of three days.

Afghanistan have already proved their might in the tournament after they hammered five-time champions, Sri Lanka, by eight wickets in the opening group fixture in Dubai on Saturday.

Afghanistan’s spin wizard Rashid Khan finished wicketless in that game but still, they bowled Sri Lanka all out for only 105 runs before went on to chase the target in just 10.1 overs.

The big win also helped them consolidate the top position in Group B with a massive +5.176 net run rate and unless the Afghans suffer a huge defeat to Bangladesh in their last group match, their Super Four place is all but confirmed.

‘I think Afghanistan is a very dangerous team and they don’t only depend on Rashid Khan. He is a world-famous performer and one of the best T20 bowlers in the world,’ Tigers newly-appointed T20 technical consultant Sriram told reporters during a press conference on Monday.

‘There is no denying that but I think when we prepare Afghanistan as a team,’ he added.

Bangladesh will also have to fight against history during the contest against Afghanistan as in the previous five T20 games they played in UAE, they were unable to win any of those matches.

Apart from that, their T20 performance against the Afghanistan side isn’t much praiseworthy as they lost five and won just three among the eight matches they played against the war-torn nation.

Skipper Shakib is all set to achieve a new personal milestone as he will be the third Bangladeshi cricketer (overall 15th) to play 100 T20 internationals when he will go for a toss with counterpart Mohammad Nabi in Sharjah today.