Having already taken an unassailable lead, Bangladesh will take on the home side West Indies in the final fixture of the 3-match T20i series in Kingstown, St Vincent on 19th December.
Match Preview:
Amid the hype of the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy, England’s tour of New Zealand gaining so much media attention, and South Africa hosting Pakistan for an all-format tour, neutral fans might be forgiven for not being aware of Bangladesh’s tour of West Indies going on.
The time zone difference makes it so much more difficult for even the most passionate cricket fans in the continent to watch the fixtures live. That doesn’t mean however that the cricket played in the series has been lackluster in quality.
2024 has been a strange year for Bangladesh. Defying all odds, they whitewashed Pakistan away from home in the longest format of the game – perhaps one of the greatest moments in their cricket history. What followed was an away series defeat in India and a humiliating 2-0 loss at home against the Proteas in the same format.
To kickstart their tour of the West Indies, Bangladesh managed to level the Test series, but the home side roared back to clean sweep the 3-match ODI series.
Now talking about the shortest format, inspired by Litton Das’ brilliant captaincy and some good all-round performances, the visitors have secured a historic series win after clinching back-to-back low-scoring thrillers in Kingstown. Can they put on one final impressive performance on this tour to whitewash the men in maroon away from home?
For the West Indies side led by Rovman Powell, the first two T20i fixtures have been extremely disappointing, to say the least. Despite restricting Bangladesh to 147 and 129 respectively in those two games, the men in maroon fell short of the finish line on both occasions, having had no answers to the spin of Mahedi Hasan.
Over more than a decade, T20 has been the strongest format of West Indies and if the home side wishes to avoid a 3-0 thrashing at Kingstown, the batters need to step up and assert their dominance in the dead rubber. While the winner of this series has already been decided, both teams have a lot to play for in the final fixture of the multi-format series.
Probable Playing XIs
West Indies: 1) Brandon King 2) Johnson Charles 3) Andre Fletcher 4) Nicholas Pooran 5) Roston Chase 6) Rovman Powell 7) Romario Shepherd 8) Akeal Hosein 9) Gudakesh Motie 10) Alzarri Joseph 11) Obed McCoy
Bangladesh: 1) Litton Das 2) Soumya Sarkar 3) Tanzid Hasan 4) Mehidy Hasan Miraz 5) Jaker Ali 6) Rishad Hossain 7) Mahedi Hasan 8) Shamim Hossain 9) Tanzim Hasan Sakib 10) Taskin Ahmed 11) Hasan Mahmud
Pitch and Weather Report:
With no rain predicted and the temperature set to drop at night at Kingstown, the weather is perfect to end this T20 series. One might expect another low-scoring encounter thanks to a combination of sluggish pitch and two sets of struggling batting units.
Head-to-Head Record:
In the shortest format, both sides have faced off 18 times with West Indies winning 9 games out of these while Bangladesh came out victorious 7 times.
Prediction:
The momentum is with the Bangladesh side and they would be looking to finish this calendar year on a high by securing a 3-0 whitewash over the men in maroon.
Where to Watch:
Pakistan:Tapmad
Bangladesh: Toffee
West Indies: ESPN Caribbean
India: FanCode App
UK: TNT Sports 2
