Afghanistan vs Bangladesh 2018, T20I Series – Statistical Preview

Afghanistan will take on Bangladesh in a 3-match T20I series hosted at the new cricket stadium in Dehradun starting June 3rd. Though Afghanistan is a younger side when compared to Bangladesh in terms of experience at the highest level, they are ahead in the rankings.

Afghans are currently the 8th ranked team in the T20I format while Bangladesh is placed at No.10. The hosts will be the favourites coming into the series given their solid winning record in the shortest format while Bangladesh got really close to winning the Nidahas Trophy in their last assignment, however, were still short of getting their hands on the trophy.

Key stats and numbers ahead of Afghanistan’s first bilateral T20I series against Bangladesh:

1 – Only once before Afghanistan and Bangladesh faced off in the T20I format. Both the teams locked horns in the 2014 WT20 qualifying round game where the hosts Bangladesh defeated the Afghans by a 9-wicket margin.

40 – Rashid Khan is the leading wicket-taker in the Twenty20 format in 2018 with 40 wickets in 28 matches. He was the leading T20 wicket-taker in 2017 as well with 80 wickets in 56 games.

49 – Rashid has taken 49 wickets in the T20I cricket including two for ICC World XI. He will be the joint 2nd quickest to 50 T20I wickets if he takes at least one wicket in the next T20I game he plays.

49 – Samiullah Shenwari needs one more wicket to complete 50 wickets in Twenty20 cricket.

99 – The Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium in Dehra Dun will be the 99th stadium to host a T20I match. The stadium is yet to host a professional cricket game (FC/List A/T20) thus far.

147 – Mushfiqur Rahim will complete 150 Twenty20 appearances if he features in all the three matches of this series.

498 – Shakib Al Hasan needs two more wickets to complete 500 wickets in International cricket. He will be the 3rd player after Jacques Kallis and Shahid Afridi to get 10000 runs and 500 wickets in International cricket.

1000 – Mohammad Nabi needs 39 more runs to complete 1000 T20I runs while his skipper Asghar Stanikzai needs 93 more runs for the same milestone. Mohammad Shahzad (1816) is the only player to score 1000 T20I runs for Afghanistan thus far.

2908 – Mahmudullah Riyad needs 92 more runs to complete 3000 runs in the Twenty20 format.

7882 – Sabbir Rahman needs 118 runs to get to 8000 runs in professional cricket. He needs 107 more runs to get past 1000 runs in the T20I format.