Bangladesh seek maiden away win against New Zealand

Wednesday May 17, Dublin
Start time 1045 local time (0945 GMT)

Bangladesh have never beaten New Zealand at an away or neutral venue in 15 matches and will be keen to set that record straight, given how the last series between the two teams, in New Zealand, panned out.

In all three of those matches, sudden and quick batting slumps from positions of relative stability cost Bangladesh. Some of that fragility was also on display in their opening match of this tri-nation series against Ireland: they lost wickets on either side of a promising stand, before Tamim Iqbal and Mahmudullah made a recovery. It's a tendency Bangladesh will have to guard against, particularly if they want to tackle a New Zealand side which, although weakened, fought back well against Ireland.

In conditions suited to seam bowling, how Bangladesh cope with New Zealand's inexperienced but promising pace attack will be key. They will also be wary of New Zealand's middle order striking form, although both George Worker and Ross Taylor were not quite fluent during their half-centuries against Ireland. New Zealand are likely to continue with Luke Ronchi as opener, giving the batsman freedom to hit out in order to ease the pressure on the middle order.

Bangladesh: LWLLL (most recent first, last five completed matches)

New Zealand: WLWLW

Mahmudullah's unbeaten 43 in the rain-interrupted match last week was only the fourth time he's scored more than 20 in an innings since October 2016. While he has scored a half-century in that period, he has not been consistent. Mahmudullah had a disappointing ODI series in New Zealand, where he scored 4 runs in three innings. However, the solid patch of form from the Dhaka Premier League has extended to this tour, and Bangladesh will be happy that his runs against Ireland came after they were struggling at 70 for 4 in the 15th over. Mahmudullah needs another 79 to become the fifth Bangladesh batsman to score 3000 ODI runs.

New Zealand coach Mike Hesson recently said they were not averse to opening the bowling with a spinner even in English conditions during the Champions Trophy, particularly if the track was flat. Mitchell Santner could be a key part of that strategy. Hesson was particularly impressed with how the left-arm spinner bounced back against Ireland: having conceded 43 and taken one wicket in his first spell of seven overs, Santner came back to take four wickets for seven in his second spell, decisively turning the match for New Zealand.

Adam Milne is likely to be available for selection, having joined the team last week. He could replace Ish Sodhi if New Zealand opt to boost their pace attack in what are likely to be seaming conditions.

New Zealand (probable) 1 Luke Ronchi (wk), 2 Tom Latham (capt), 3 George Worker, 4 Ross Taylor, 5 Neil Broom, 6 James Neesham, 7 Colin Munro, 8 Scott Kuggeleijn, 9 Mitchell Santner, 10 Seth Rance, 11 Adam Milne/ Ish Sodhi

Mashrafe Mortaza will return from over-rate suspension, at the expense of possibly Rubel Hossain. Apart from that change, Bangladesh may want to persist with the XI they picked for the first match, which was abandoned.

Bangladesh:(probable) 1 Tamim Iqbal, 2 Soumya Sarkar, 3 Sabbir Rahman, 4 Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), 5 Shakib Al Hasan, 6 Mosaddek Hossain, 7 Mahmudullah, 8 Mehedi Hasan, 9 Taskin Ahmed, 10 Mashrafe Mortaza (capt), 11 Mustafizur Rahman

This will be the first ODI, and the second international game, at Castle Avenue since May 2014, when Sri Lanka took on Ireland in a two-match series. At the time, conditions were green and seaming and it could be the same on Wednesday. The temperature in Dublin is expected to be between 15 and 18 Celsius during the day, with a chance of rain.

"It's a challenge for us because we have guys coming back from the IPL. So we will have players we will release back to England and we will give a little bit of time to acclimatise and then assess conditions, because there are still ODIs and we will need to keep picking what we deem to be our best team."
New Zealand coach Mike Hesson on how the team plans to rotate players in the tri-series