Tigers to play 3 warm-ups before qualifiers

The Bangladesh cricket team will play three warm-up matches before the T20 World Cup 2021, which is set to begin on October 17 in Oman and UAE, respectively.

Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) Cricket Operations Committee Chairman Akram Khan confirmed the development to the media. He also said the Tigers have planned to leave early for Oman to play the warm matches. "Bangladesh will leave the country on the 3rd of October and will reach Oman on the 4th. The practice will start after undergoing one day of quarantine,” Akram said. Bangladesh will play their first warm-up match against Oman ‘A’ on October 8, following they will face Sri Lanka and Ireland on October 12 and 14. “We will play a warm-up match against Oman 'A' on October 8. On the 9th, the Bangladesh team will leave for Abu Dhabi. There will be two more warm-up matches on the 12th and 14th. 

Then the team will return to Oman and play the matches of the first round,” he added. Bangladesh have to play the qualifiers before they get the ticket to the main event. The Tigers will have to either win the group or at least manage to be runners-up in order to make it through the first round. Bangladesh will start their T20 World Cup Qualifiers campaign against Scotland. The match will be played at the Oman Cricket Academy ground in Muscat on October 17. Then, Tigers will face Oman and Papua New Guinea on October 19 and 21 respectively.

Tamim missed sporting wicket as T20 WC preparation

Bangladesh ODI skipper Tamim Iqbal thinks that Bangladesh's recent win in T20 will be very important for the confidence of the cricketers. However, according to the experienced opener, playing a few matches on a sporting wicket would have been better for the team if they had gone to the World Cup. After the tour of Zimbabwe in July, the Tigers hosted Australia and New Zealand in August and earlier this month respectively as they are going to play in the T20 World Cup next month after winning these three consecutive T20 series. Bangladesh have won against Australia and New Zealand by slow and turning wickets at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium in Mirpur. Despite the ever T20I series victory against them, there is room for doubt as to how well the World Cup has been prepared in terms of skills.

Along with commentator and former Sri Lankan cricketer Russel Arnold in his show 'Chilling with Russel' on Facebook on Sunday, Tamim, who opted out of the extravaganza, said it would have been better if Bangladesh had played some games on sporting wickets in both series. "We are well prepared. We won matches against big teams. But it would have been ideal if we had really seen the team play a few matches on sporting wickets because playing in the World Cup is a different matter,” "Winning the matches are very important, I agree with that. But since it is such a big tournament, it would have been nice to play with the kind of wickets you have to play in the next two weeks (World Cup). Bangladesh is taking a lot of confidence with them, which is a plus point” Tamim said.