|| CF Correspondent ||

Afghanistan captain Gulbadin Naib won the toss after it was delayed for 10 minutes and sent Bangladesh in batting at the Rose Bowl in Southampton.

Bangladesh made two changes to the side with Mohammad Saifuddin and Mosaddek Hossain Saikat replacing Rubel Hossain and Sabbir Rahman.

Both of whom missed the match against Australia due to their respective injuries.

Afghanistan also brought up two changes from the game against India where they pushed the two-time World Champions vehemently before going down to 11 runs.

Dawlat Zadran and Samiullah Shinwari came in the place of Aftab Alam and Hazratullah Zazai.

Bangladesh held the advantage in face-to-face battle, winning four and losing three in seven encounters against Afghanistan.

The Tigers also crushed Afghanistan by 105 runs in 2015 World Cup, hosted jointly by Australia-New Zealand, their only meeting in the cricket’s biggest extravaganza so far.

But in the last Asia Cup held at Dubai in 2018, Bangladesh tasted a humiliating 136-run defeat to Afghans, before sealing a narrow three-run victory in return-leg match. Bangladesh also lost a match to Afghanistan in Asia Cup in 2014 at their home soil.

As far as the multinational tournament including World Cup is concerned, they faced off each other four times and the result locked at 2-2.

So the stat suggested Afghans were never a pushover for Bangladesh. But the Tigers still should be absolutely favourite in this World Cup match, given their performance, cricket culture and history.