Match News and Current Form
Bangladesh are on their second three-game winning streak since the last T20 World Cup alone, crafting a fairly impressive albeit hot and cold record of 7-6 since being clean swept by India last October. They’ve played some of their best and some of their worst cricket during that brief period, and not for the first time there were some especially encouraging signs.
Taskin Ahmed made a successful return from injury with his second three-wicket haul in four T20Is and the fifth time in his last 13 games on home soil that he claimed at least three scalps. Parvez Hossain Emon again showed why Bangladeshi management persisted with him during a very lean start to his T20I career as he pummelled five sixes, four of them during what otherwise would have been a very slow scoring powerplay.
Pakistan displayed the batting recklessness that they have unwillingly become synonymous with over the years, and that’s why a furious head coach Mike Hesson didn’t focus all of his frustrated energy on the state of a pitch that he assessed as “unacceptable”. Despite the belief the day before the game from Bangladesh captain Litton Das that the Mirpur pitch was going to be uncharacteristically supportive to batting, it didn’t exactly turn out that way.
The visitors can only blame themselves for three run outs and some very poor shot selection along the way, including captain Salman Agha’s audacious attempt to scoop fast bowler Tanzim Hasan Sakib. All the promises of their 3-0 series win at home to Bangladesh just two months ago is quickly vapourising and they need to quickly take a much more adaptable and intelligent approach to this fixture before it’s too late.
Head-to-Head History
Sunday saw Bangladesh record just their fourth win over Pakistan from 23 T20Is, one of which was during an Asian Games event where the sides fielded second XIs in a fully capped international.
The other three of their four wins took place at this venue, where they now have a 3-5 record against Pakistan.
Hot Stats and Streaks
Seven of the last ten Mirpur T20Is were won by the chasing team
The average run rate across those ten games is just 6.67rpo (132 runs per 20 overs)
Eight of Bangladesh’s last ten opening partnerships scored between 1-16 runs
All but one of Pakistan’s last 12 opening partnerships were worth under 20 runs
Key Players to Watch
Taskin Ahmed has been an excellent performer in the capital, accumulating eight wickets across his four T20Is in Dhaka since the start of 2023. In his last eight H2Hs he took either 2-3 wickets (x4) or none at all (x4). Pakistan opener Fakhar Zaman has been even better: his three T20I appearances in Dhaka produced scores of 37, 57* and 44. He showed his teammates in the first game how it’s done here.
Betting Analysis
Salman Mirza did well to extract some extra bounce out of the pitch and was troublesome during the powerplay. He presents good odds to take over 1.5 wickets again.