Mirpur, Aug 2: The fringe players in the Australian team will have an opportunity to put their name in the hat for a spot in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup squad when they face Bangladesh in a five-match series, starting Tuesday.
Australia are without several key players, including David Warner, Pat Cummins, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Jhye Richardson and Kane Richardson, all of whom opted-out of the tour while Steve Smith and Aaron Finch are nursing injuries.
Matthew Wade will be standing in as captain for the series and will be hoping that the team can bounce back after the 4-1 loss to West Indies in the T20I series last month.
Bangladesh meanwhile come into the series on the back of a hard-fought 2-1 T20I series win over Zimbabwe.
With Mushfiqur Rahim, Liton Das and Tamim Iqbal missing the series, the onus will be on experienced campaigners such as Shakib Al Hasan, Mahmudullah and Soumya Sarkar to lead the way against Australia.
Australia beat Bangladesh by three wickets when they faced off in the Super 10 stages of the ICC T20 World Cup 2016 in Bangalore. Australia has never lost a T20 match against Bangladesh in four encounters, all of which were meetings at World Cups.
Bangladesh coach Russell Domingo said, “Obviously, winning is always important. It’s a great opportunity for us to try and win a series against Australia; it will do wonders for our confidence. We also want to try and find our best combination (for the T20 World Cup), and playing against Australia will give us that opportunity.”
Meanwhile, stand-in Australia captain Matthew Wade went on to say, “To go back into the middle order is a challenge I’m excited to do. It doesn’t faze me too much, whatever needs to be done. Then once the World Cup comes around, whether that means I go back up the top or stay in the middle order, we aren’t 100% sure. The way Mitch has come out and played at No. 3 that’s certainly another option for us at the top.” (UNI)
