The 55-year-old coach recommends focusing on the youth to steer Bangladesh to a level of excellence.

The South Asian nation is one of nine countries to have played all T20 World Cups since the tournament began in 2007 but is alone in never having made it to the knockout stage.

We distance ourselves from the sport, stop watching the games, and wish that the news of the results doesn’t reach us. But to remain unaffected is not a choice we can make.

The Najmul Hossain Shanto-led side hit new lows in T20I when they suffered a series defeat against lower-ranked USA with one match to spare, sparking huge criticism among the cricket fans back home. 

Liton may not be an automatic starter but Bangladesh’s plans could change drastically after just one game at the upcoming main event.

It is not unknown to anyone that Bangladesh are still to come to terms with the T20 format -- a rudimentary assessment of the Tigers’ T20 calibre and a glance at how the Tigers fared in the previous editions of the T20 World Cup would be enough to realise that.

Sure, Saifuddin has dished out glimpses of his talents with bat and ball in domestic competitions but can those sparks of promise in lower-quality contests be used to solidify faith in the 27-year-old heading into the T20 World Cup in June?

The scepticism and queries over the team’s preparation were not at all surprising, considering how poorly the Tigers have fared in the last two T20 World Cups -- only winning over low-ranked Netherlands and Zimbabwe in 2022 while suffering a humiliating loss to Scotland the year before in the previous edition.

Shakib is currently sitting on 47 wickets in 36 matches in T20 World Cups and is the only active cricketer among the top five wicket-taker’s list in the competition.

The series will begin with the first Test in Antigua, starting on November 22 and followed by the second Test in Jamaica, commencing on November 30.

Zimbabwe need 166 runs to win.

Bangladesh need 139 runs to win.

While the Bangladesh team spent the gap day between the first and second Twenty20 Internationals against Zimbabwe at the team hotel, fast bowling coach Andre Adams and batting coach David Hemp spent a busy day yesterday, gearing up Soumya Sarkar for his return to action post-injury.

Batting depth would be of importance heading to the World Cup and Tigers were furnishing options to that end.

Bangladesh’s newly-appointed spin-bowling coach Mushtaq Ahmed arrived at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium along with the rest of the coaching panel, including head coach Chandika Hathurusingha, who joined the Tigers camp following the Eid holidays. 

For Jaker, this year was a special Eid. The hardworking middle-order batter talked about his time away from cricket during past Eids and his inspirations in an exclusive interview with The Daily Star’s Abdullah Al Mehdi.

As the dust settles on Bangladesh’s 2-0 humiliation in the home Test series against Sri Lanka, the state of the country’s domestic red-ball cricket has once again become a hot topic.

Bangladesh’s preparation for the just-concluded Test series against Sri Lanka has come under fire after the 2-0 series loss.

Soumya, a batter who is known for his inconsistency, becoming the fastest to reach 2000 ODI runs in the country highlights the subpar standard of Bangladesh cricket

“Win or lose, the most important thing is whether we are playing as a team or not,” Shanto told the media in Chattogram today.