Buoyed by last week’s maiden Test win against Australia in Dhaka, Bangladesh are aiming to clinch the two-match series by defeating the visitors in the second one in Chittagong.
The second and final Test began on Monday at Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in the port city with a 10am kick-off.
The Tigers are already leading the series 1-0 after their historic 20-run victory on the fourth day of the five-day game on August 27-30 at Mirpur’s Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium and.
Even a draw in the second match will be enough to enable the home side to achieve their maiden Test series victory against the Aussies.
On the other hand, the Chittagong Test will be a do-or-die for Australia as they have to win the deciding match to square the series and thwart a Bangla whitewash.
Not only that, a defeat in the final match in Chittagong will result in Australia tumbling to sixth position in the ICC World Test rankings.
Commenting about the tourists, Bangladesh skipper Mushfiqur Rahim at a pre-match press conference on Sunday said: "They (Australia) know they are under pressure. Normally they announce the XI. In this case they haven't announced the XI. But the Australia team are very strong and they will come back hard. We know that. But our boys are also pretty fresh and they are very consistent in Chittagong also. So if we do the right things I think the result will come our way.”
Australia captain Steven Smith said: "I hate losing games of cricket. It wasn't a nice end to the game but again I'm confident again this week that we can come out and hopefully play with good skills and turn things around. It's important for this group moving forward. We just need to play better cricket for long and hopefully stay in the contest and get the result we're after."
TEAMS
Bangladesh (probable): 1 Tamim Iqbal, 2 Soumya Sarkar, 3 Imrul Kayes, 4 Sabbir Rahman, 5 Shakib Al Hasan, 6 Mushfiqur Rahim (captain & wk keeper), 7 Nasir Hossain/Mominul Haque, 8 Mehdy Hasan, 9 Taijul Islam, 10 Shafiul Islam, 11 Mustafizur Rahman.
Australia (probable): 1 David Warner, 2 Matt Renshaw, 3 Steven Smith (captain), 4 Peter Handscomb, 5 Glenn Maxwell, 6 Hilton Cartwright, 7 Matthew Wade (wk), 8 Ashton Agar, 9 Steve O'Keefe, 10 Pat Cummins, 11 Nathan Lyon.
– agencies
