Winning two back to back T20Is on Friday and Saturday, Pakistan have already won the three-match T20I series. Both teams now meet for the third and final game at the Gadaffi Stadium in Lahore with very different agendas in front of them. While Pakistan will look to clean sweep the Tigers, Bangladesh, on the other hand, will look to play for pride and salvage a win. Bangladesh are languishing at ninth in the ICC T20I rankings while Pakistan has strengthened their position at the top after back to back wins. The Pakistan vs Bangladesh 2020, 3rd T20I will be thus an important match nonetheless
Both teams have displayed different approach in the series so far. The Bangladesh batsmen have failed to put up winning scores back to back on two occasions, giving their bowlers hardly anything to defend. Neil Mckenzie, Bangladesh batting coach looked very upset with how his batters batted in the first two games. Apart from Tamim Iqbal, every other batsmen has struggled in front of Pakistan’s lethal pace attack.
”What’s been disappointing for me has been the intent. We have been working so hard in the last couple of years on rotation of strike, putting the bowlers under pressure, where you are standing, making him bowl to where you want him to bowl. But I haven’t seen too much of those in the last T20s” said Mckenzie ahead of the Pakistan vs Bangladesh 2020, 3rd T20I.
Also Read: Pakistan vs Bangladesh 2020 1st T20I Preview
The Tigers might also look to tweak the playing XI with Rubel Hossain in place of an out of form Mustafizur Rahman who has erred in length in the first two games. Coach Domingo has said that Bangladesh will find space to field Najmul Hossain Shanto, Rubel Hossain and newcomer Hasan Mahmud.
The Pakistan batsmen, on the other hand, have brought out their best game in the first two games. While senior batsmen Shoaib Malik scored 58 in the first game, skipper Babar Azam (66*) and Mohammad Hafeez (67*) scored unbeaten fifties to take their team home. Azam’s vision of maintaining their pole position at the ICC T20I rankings has been achieved after they lost a bit of form recently.
Their bowlers also presented stand-out performances so far in the series. Shaheen Afridi and BBL 09 sensation Haris Rauf have picked up four wickets together from the first two games and maintained a lid on the Bangladesh scoring rate. Both times batting first, Bangladesh have failed to reach 150 which indicates the discipline of the Pakistan bowlers. However, Pakistan are also sure to hand debut caps to Amad Butt and Usman Qadir.
Important Stats
The most important stat heading into this game is that Mohammad Hafeez is eight runs short of 2000 T201 runs. Also after two back to back defeats in the series, Bangladesh have now lost 10 T20I games against the Men in Green while winning only 2.
Squads
Pakistan
Babar Azam(c), Ahsan Ali, Mohammad Hafeez, Shoaib Malik, Iftikhar Ahmed, Mohammad Rizwan(w), Imad Wasim, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Hasnain, Usman Qadir, Amad Butt, Muhammad Musa, Khushdil Shah
Bangladesh
Tamim Iqbal, Mohammad Naim, Mahedi Hasan, Liton Das(w), Afif Hossain, Mahmudullah(c), Soumya Sarkar, Aminul Islam, Shafiul Islam, Al-Amin Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman, Rubel Hossain, Mohammad Mithun, Najmul Hossain Shanto, Hasan Mahmud
Here is the Dream XI Predicted team for the game.