Bangladesh are eyeing to make a winning start against Sri Lanka in the three-match T20I series in Sylhet as they begin their preparation for the forthcoming T20 World Cup with it.
The three-match T20 series opener will start at the Sylhet International Cricket Stadium today at 06:00pm while T Sports and Gazi TV will telecast the match live.
Bangladesh did not lose any bilateral T20I series since 2022 and during this time frame, they won four series against UAE, England, Ireland and Afghanistan while they also drawn a T20I series against New Zealand at their own backyard.
Their upsurge in this format was further evidenced in drawing an away series against New Zealand at the end of the last year. In this period, they,however, failed to get expected success in the multinational tournament.
“I think it is important that before the World Cup, we will play eight to 11 matches and if we can plan properly and organize ourselves from here, it will be easier to play the World Cup,” Bangladesh skipper Najmul Hossain Shanto told reporters at the Sylhet International Cricket Stadium on Sunday.
“I think it is important to play as a team (in T20) and if we see last year everyone had contribution and in every matches and this is something that we need to continue and how we have faith on one another that is important and if we can grow that in the coming days,” he said, adding that they are not thinking too much on what happened in the past like the Nagin dance or the time out incident.
“Against Sri Lanka, we are not thinking about outside things( like Nagin dance and time out) like what happened in the past and hopefully will have a good series and we are focusing on our plan and will do what we need to do and hopefully will have good series. Every international series is a pressure and it is true for us as well as the opponent and it will remain that way and everyone is enough matured to handle these things. They have very good team and especially they have all-rounder but still we are playing at home condition and so there will be advantage for us and I hope we can play some good cricket,” he said.
“We have hundred percent faith that we can win the series,” he added.
Meanwhile, Sri Lankan head coach Chris Silverwood said that they are expecting a tough series against Bangladesh.
“I’m going to say Sri Lanka are going to be the favourites. But listen, as I’ve already said, there is two good teams that will both be pushing very hard to win this series. Because we’re all building up to the World Cup now, so we want to start making sure that we’re playing top cricket going into that. So as I said before, I expect this to be very competitive,” the Englishman concluded.
