Sylhet: A venue Bangladesh don’t prefer
Bangladesh have played a total of four international matches at Sylhet and have only won one. In their only match against Zimbabwe, which was a Test match, Bangladesh lost by 151 runs in 2018.
After their victory by an innings and 106 runs against Zimbabwe at Dhaka, Bangladesh now travel to Sylhet for three ODIs. Despite Bangladesh being the clear favourites in their most-favoured format, their record in Sylhet might just make them a tad uncomfortable.
Bangladesh have played a total of four international matches at Sylhet and have only won one. In their only match against Zimbabwe, which was a Test match, Bangladesh lost by 151 runs in 2018.
But in their only ODI at Sylhet, Bangladesh managed to beat West Indies by eight wickets, courtesy of fifties from Tamim Iqbal and Soumya Sarkar. And the other two matches at Sylhet were T20Is and Bangladesh lost them both to Sri Lanka and West Indies.
Bangladesh have already started practising at Sylhet ahead of the series. They have their ODI skipper Mashrafe Mortaza back for the first time since the World Cup in England. They also have Mushfiqur Rahim back for the limited-overs as he opted out of the T20I series in Pakistan.
Bangladesh's last ODI action was back in 2019 when they had toured Sri Lanka to play a three-match series after the World Cup. And just like the World Cup, their performance was horrid as they were clean swept 3-0 by the hosts. In the World Cup prior to that, despite Shakib Al Hasan's heroics, Bangladesh finished 8th, last among the automatically qualified sides.
Bangladesh will be looking forward to clean-sweeping the series as they need a boost in confidence before they tour Pakistan for an ODI and the second Test.
Afif Hossain, who came into the ODI side for the first time, believed that Bangladesh can whitewash Zimbabwe if they played their best cricket.
"If we play our best cricket, we can whitewash them (Zimbabwe)," Afif said.
Bangladesh will surely hope that they can play their best as their newcomer said. Because they are facing a storm and a series win against Zimbabwe might not clear it, but will surely slow it down a bit.