Bangladesh tour of Afghanistan 2024 rescheduled

In a recent development, the Bangladesh Cricket Board and the Afghanistan Cricket Board have agreed to reschedule the two teams’ all-format series beyond the ICC T20 World Cup in June. The Bangla Tigers were set to play an away series against Afghanistan in UAE in July. However, after the recent meeting between the boards, they will now be playing against each other at any point of time after the month of July.

This development was confirmed by Bangladesh Cricket Board’s Operations Chairman Jalal Younis to Cricbuzz. Younis had stated that the meeting with ACB proved to be fruitful and that there weren’t many difficulties faced during the negotiations to shift the all-format series. This would have marked the first time Afghanistan hosted Bangladesh for a series. Previously, it was the Afghans who toured the country for ODIs, T20Is, and Tests.

“The away series against Afghanistan will be rescheduled after both boards agreed to play the series at some other point of time,” Jalal Younis, BCB Operations Chairman said via Cricbuzz.

How many Tests, ODIs, and T20Is would have Bangladesh played against Afghanistan?

Afghanistan, who had a far better performance in last year’s Cricket World Cup as compared to their previous appearances, would have hosted Bangladesh for a full-fledged series. The series would, still, see them play 2 Test matches, 3 One-day matches, and 3 T20Is each.

Last year, the two nations played a similar all-format series when Bangladesh hosted Afghanistan in June. Therein, the Bangla Tigers claimed victory in the one-off Test match in Mirpur as part of the current World Test Championship cycle and had also won the 3-match T20I series by a margin of 2-1.

The Afghanis were able to only win the 3-match ODI series by 2-1 and since then they have faced Bangladesh twice – during the 50-over Asia Cup 2023 and the CWC in India. The Bangladeshis had won both of those Asia Cup and Cricket World Cup ties against Afghanistan by 89 runs and 6 wickets respectively at Lahore and Dharamshala respectively.

In terms of red-ball cricket, the Asians have met each other on only 2 occasions. The first time they played a Test match was during the first WTC cycle where Afghanistan had claimed victory by 224 runs in Chottogram and then last year, Bangladesh had registered an outstanding 546-run victory in Mirpur.

The all-format series which has now been rescheduled, would have seen Bangladesh and Afghanistan lock horns against each other only for the 3rd time in the longest format.

Huge boost for Bangladesh as Shakib Al Hasan set to return

Meanwhile, the Bangla Tigers have been handed with a major boost as senior all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan is all set to return in action across all formats. Jalal Younis confirmed this development while speaking to Cricbuzz and also claimed that Shakib is a key figure in the team.

“He is ready to play in all the three formats in the coming days unless there is some fitness issues and that is good news for us considering his experience is very essential for our team,” Younis concluded.