Bangladesh eyeing whitewash against Zimbabwe

Bangladesh will take on Zimbabwe for the fifth and final T20 International to sweep the series at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium tomorrow (Sunday).

The match starts at 10 am and will be aired live on Gazi TV and T Sports Channel.

A day T20 International match, especially at home is not common for the Tigers but the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) put this match at day time, considering the T20 World Cup in the USA and West Indies in mind.

Bangladesh would have to play the three-match T20 International series against the USA and first match against Sri Lanka in the T20 World Cup at day time.

In fact the series against Zimbabwe is taken as a preparation platform for the World Cup. Bangladesh had already clinched the series and won all four matches, which may give an impression that they had already taken a good preparation but the reality is different. 

Bangladesh in fact stood on the brink of sweeping the five-match series against any opponents for the first time in their history. However they didn't play five-match T20 series on a regular basis.

While a 5-0 whitewash will be an ideal result given Zimbabwe's performance this time in the series, Bangladesh still need to iron out the wrinkles. 

While the bowling fires as it has been in the last two years, the batting still remains the spot of bother. Most of the batters, including the captain Najmul Hossain Shanto are yet to click with batting, which is considered as ominous sign with the World Cup being away less than a month.

Amongst the batters, opener Tanzid Hasan Tamim and Towhid Hridoy showed some consistency but what would bother Bangladesh most that the whole batting line up fail to clink all together in any match. When the openers got good start, the middle order usually failed to cash in on it. When the middle order fired, the late middle order sank the team. As a whole, the consistency in the batting line up looked now big issue, which must be fixed ahead of the World Cup.

The loss of all 10 wickets for 42 runs in the last match against Zimbabwe sent Bangladesh another SOS. The Mirpur wicket was not typically slow and opener Tanzid and Soumya Sarkar put on a 101-run partnership to justify it

However, injudicious shots led Bangladesh's downfall even though they won the match by five runs courtesy to bowler's performance.

"The way Tanzid and Soumya batted we are very happy with them. Wicket was not that good but we should have batted a little bit more carefully. Hopefully we will come back in the next match," Bangladesh captain Najmul Hossain Shanto said.

"We all know the wicket is tricky. But credit goes to Soumya and Tamim. They (Zimbabwe) also bowled very well. I think throughout the series our bowlers bowled very well."

The victory in the fourth match was Bangladesh's 17th win against Zimbabwe in 24 encounters in T20 format. They have lost just seven matches against the visitors.

Zimbabwe, which won the last series between the two sides at their own home, have been struggling so much so that they looked no match for Bangladesh. But their young players showed promise and if they can get some support from the vulnerable top order and senior batters, the visitors well could deny Bangladesh a whitewash.