Bangladesh bowl first in tri-series opener

Bangladesh won the toss and asked Pakistan to bat in the T20 tri-series opener at the Hagley Oval in Christchurch on Friday.

These two sides have faced each other 15 times in this format and the men in green emerged victorious 13 times while the Tigers won only Twice.

Pakistan lost a closely fought T20I series at home against England, but with Shaheen Afridi's return, they'll be feeling a lot more confident. Also, apart from Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan, most of their batters have been out of touch, of late. So although their bowling looks fiery in the presence of Afridi, Rauf and Naseem Shah, their batting needs some fine-tuning.

On the other hand, Bangladesh have Shakib Al Hasan as their top player. However, he is not in the playing IX. But apart from that, they too, have a fairly inexperienced side.

Bangladesh (Playing XI): Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Sabbir Rahman, Afif Hossain, Mosaddek Hossain, Litton Das, Yasir Ali, Nurul Hasan(w/c), Taskin Ahmed, Hasan Mahmud, Mustafizur Rahman, Nasum Ahmed.

Pakistan (Playing XI): Babar Azam(c), Mohammad Rizwan(w), Shan Masood, Haider Ali, Iftikhar Ahmed, Asif Ali, Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Wasim Jr, Haris Rauf, Shahnawaz Dahani.