Bangladesh vs Afghanistan 2016: Tour schedule

The series will provide Afghanistan an opportunity to compete against a Test playing nation

Bangladesh will host Afghanistan for a 3 match ODI series at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur starting from September 25. The last ODI will be played on 1st October.

“This will be the first series between Bangladesh and Afghanistan.  We are looking forward to an entertaining cricket for the cricket lovers of Bangladesh,” said Nasimullah Danish, the chairman of the Afghanistan Cricket Board.

“We are in close discussion with ICC full members and successfully completed many tours with ICC full members. Series of matches with ICC full members prove that Afghanistan cricket secured a decent spot in the Cricketing world. It’s always good for our team development to test themselves in different conditions, and there’s no better place than Bangladesh to do that.”

Before this series Afghanistan have met Bangladesh thrice in international cricket. Twice in ODIs and once in T20s. Afghanistan registered a memorable win against Bangladesh in their first match defeating the Tigers by 32 runs in the 2014 Asia Cup. They again met in the 2014 World T20 match where Bangladesh won comprehensively by 9 wickets.

Their most recent meeting was the game in the 2015 ICC World Cup in Australia which Bangladesh won by 105 runs.

The series will provide Afghanistan an opportunity to compete against a Test playing nation and show their competitiveness at the highest level. "We are very thankful to Bangladesh Cricket Board for hosting Afghanistan National Cricket Team and we are committed to playing as many international games as possible. We will learn and deliver good cricket for cricket lovers” said Shafiq Stanikzai, the chief executive of Afghanistan Cricket Board.

Bangladesh has been in scintillating form in the limited overs format winning ODI series’ against Pakistan, India, and South Africa last year and also eliminated England from the 2015 World Cup after defeating them in the group stage. Mustafizur Rehman has been a revelation for Bangladesh with the ball in hand and has single-handedly destroyed serious batting line-ups in his pretty short career.

Afghanistan, on the other hand, has performed reasonably well in the recent past. They won an ODI series against Zimbabwe last year and their wicket-keeper and destructive batsman Mohammad Shehzad have provided them the ideal start on many occasions with his swashbuckling strokeplay. Besides their batting, Afghanistan also boasts of a very good bowling line up with Shapoor Zadran, Dawlat Zadran, and Hamid Hassan being quality fast bowlers.

Here is the schedule for the 3 match ODI series

Date	Time	Fixture	Venue
Sep 25	N/A	Bangladesh vs Afghanistan, 1st ODI	Shere Bangla National Stadium Dhaka
Sep 28		Bangladesh vs Afghanistan, 2nd ODI
Oct 01		Bangladesh vs Afghanistan, 3rd ODI