|| CF Correspondent ||

Bangladesh will lock horns with Afghanistan in their seventh World Cup match on Monday at Southampton, another match that turns out to be ‘do or die’ game for Bangladesh.

Bangladesh and Afghanistan faced each other only seven times over the years. The reason behind this is that Afghanistan team is fairly new in the international arena. Afghanistan got their ODI status in 2011. They faced Bangladesh in 2014 and surprised everyone by beating the tigers in their first meeting.

Bangladesh is currently number eighth ranked team in the ODI and Afghanistan is at the 10th position. Bangladesh is also doing well in the World Cup, currently sixth in the point table and searching for a place in the semis. On the other hand Afghanistan are at the bottom of the table with no point. They are searching for their first win in this World Cup and try their best the secure that as they lost against India just by 11 runs in a close fought contest. Bangladesh will also try not to slip up against the Afghanistan as they need to win all of their remaining three matches to qualify for the semifinal.

Now let’s look at some of the interesting stats between these two sides:

1.        Last 5 Matches:  Bangladesh won three of their last five matches against Afghanistan. Bangladesh and Afghanistan played an ODI series with each other in 2016 at Bangladesh.  In that series Bangladesh won that series 2-1. And Bangladesh also faced Afghanistan twice in the 2018-2019 Asia Cup, Afghanistan won the first encounter by 141 runs and then Bangladesh bounced back with a three runs win over the Afghanis.

2.        Total Matches: Bangladesh and Afghanistan faced each other only seven times in the ODI history, Bangladesh won four matches and Afghanistan won three.  In these seven matches, they played each other four times in a neutral venue and in neutral venues they won two matches each.  Bangladesh  will face Afghanistan in Southampton, which is a neutral venue also.

3.        In World Cup: These two cricketing nations faced each other just once in the World Cup.  in 2015 World Cup in Australia. Bangladesh won that match by 105 runs.  Batting first Bangladesh posted 267 runs on the board, Shakib Al Hasan scored 63 and Mushfiqur Rahim scored 71 runs from 56 balls.  In reply Afghanistan managed to accumulate just 162 runs. For Bangladesh, Mashrafee bin Mortaza was the pick of the bowlers, he picked up three wickets by giving only 20 runs in nine overs.