History beckons for Tigers against Aussies

After a resounding five-wicket victory on Wednesday, Bangladesh will look to wrap up the series by winning the third T20I of the five-match series against Australia on Friday. Bangladesh have never won a bilateral series in any form of the game against Australia and this will be a huge opportunity for Mahmudullah's men to create history.

On the other hand, Australia will be desperate to put up a better show in the third match to stay alive in the series. They sweated it out at the nets while Bangladesh players spent their time relaxing at the hotel on Thursday.

Except Mitchell Marsh, hardly an Australian batter looked comfortable against the Bangladeshi bowlers. On pitches that were slow and provided assistance to the slow bowlers, the visitors found it very difficult to score runs. 

However, Bangladesh will be slightly worried about the form of the two opening batters. Soumya Sarkar struggled in both the games against the Australian quicks. Mohammad Naim got some runs in the first match but most of his runs came from boundaries. Mahmudullah will expect the openers to do better in the third match as batting is likely to be more difficult as the ball gets older. 

Mustafizur Rahman hitting peak form at the right time is a huge positive for the home side especially with the World Cup approaching. Australia all-rounder Moises Henriques, after the second match, said, "The amount of revolutions he gets on the slower ball even on a good wicket is hard to play anyway, let alone on a surface like that. We need to find a way to combat that, and try and get as many runs as possible."

Ashton Agar also heaped praise on Mustafizur, saying that it's an incredible skill to bowl those slower balls with so much revolutions on them. 

Shoriful Islam was very impressive as well and bowled brilliantly at the death in the second match. It was Shoriful and Mustafizur who ensured that Australia didn't score too many in the last five.

Afif Hossain's stellar performance with the bat will give a lot of confidence to the hosts. Bangladesh were in deep trouble when he came into bat. He and Nurul Hasan not only kept the wickets intact but also didn't let the required run rate go up. They stitched a match-winning 56-run partnership for the sixth wicket to make sure Bangladesh didn't let the chance of winning slip through. 

Most of the players of the Australian squad haven't played in Bangladesh before and according to Henriques, the conditions were as foreign and alien as he's ever seen. 

He said, "They're a big adjustment for us and we probably have to adapt quicker, that's for sure. There are no excuses there. But it's great for us to be exposed to this because I don't think it's going to get any more different or any more the opposite to what we're used to in Australia."

The visitors might make one or two changes in the third match. Alex Carey hasn't been among runs and got out to Mahedi Hasan in both the matches. Australia might bring in Ben McDermott in place of Carey. Bangladesh isn't likely to change the winning combination.