Tigers-Aussies 1st T20I today

Bangladesh Cricket team will face off Australia Cricket team in the first Twenty20 International (T20I) match today at the Bir Shreshtha Shaheed Flight Lieutenant Matiur Rahman Stadium in Chattogram, the port city of the country.

The match will start at 2:00pm (Bangladesh Standard Time). Private satellite sports channel T Sports will telecast the match live. Captain of Tigers Litton Das will lead his side, while Captain of Aussies Mitchell Marsh will lead his team.

Soumya Sarkar was not initially included in the three-match T20I series starting today in the port city.

But on Tuesday, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) suddenly announced his inclusion in the team in a press release. Soumya last played in this version against the West Indies in December 2024.

The new opportunity for Soumya has come due to Litton’s injury and Parvez Hossain’s illness.

Explaining Soumya’s sudden inclusion in the team at the pre-series press conference in Chattogram on Tuesday, Captain Litton Das said, “Since I am fifty-fifty, I don’t know what can happen, we have to wait until tomorrow. Emon is also a little sick. That’s why we didn’t take the risk.”

Soumya Sarkar did not get a chance in the playing XI in the first match of the recently concluded ODI series against Australia, but played in the last two matches. Soumya has played 87 matches in the T20I version and scored 1462 runs at an average of 17.82 and a strike rate of 122.13.

Despite the concerns about batting, the Bangladesh team are quite comfortable with its bowling. Although many were absent in the last T20I series against New Zealand, all the big stars are present this time against Australia. Taskin Ahmed, Mostafizur Rahman, Nahid Rana, Shoriful Islam are among the pacers, along with promising Abdul Gaffar.

Litton said, “It is good that the pace attack of Bangladesh is very strong. We can play anyone in the best XI. It is a good competition. It is also good for the Bangladesh team that the bench is getting stronger.’

Bangladesh have won four T20I out of 11 T20I matches against Australia. All of them were in the five-match series played at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in the capital’s Mirpur in 2021. That is still the last T20I series between the two teams. The Tigers won the ODI series against Australia at ‘Home of Cricket’ recently.

Litton Das said, “Not only did we win the series (in the ODIs), we played very good cricket in all three matches. This is an added bonus. Of course, the format is different, our team are different, their team are also different.

One good thing is that most of our players have played in ODIs. Everyone has confidence. But we have to play very good cricket on a certain day.”

Bangladesh T20I squad: Litton Das (Captain), Parvez Hossain Emon, Soumya Sarkar, Tanzid Hasan, Saif Hassan, Shamim Hossain, Towhid Hridoy (Vice-Captain), Nurul Hasan, Mahedi Hasan, Nasum Ahmed, Rishad Hossain, Shoriful Islam, Mustafizur Rahman, Taskin Ahmed, Nahid Rana and Abdul Gaffar.

Australia T20I squad: Mitchell Marsh (Captain), Xavier Bartlett, Cooper Connolly, Tim David, Joel Davies, Nathan Ellis, Cameron Green, Aaron Hardie, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Spencer Johnson, Matthew Kuhnemann, Riley Meredith, Josh Philippe, Matt Renshaw and Adam Zampa.