7 players to watch out for in the India v Bangladesh T20I series

India and Bangladesh have played each other head-to-head on 14 previous occasions, of which India have won 13 games. That should be reason enough for Bangladesh to take the bull by its horns and change the sorry state of affairs regarding its record against a far too powerful team. However, the outcome of the recent Tests in what has been, up to this point, a one-sided series should ideally serve as motivation for the visitors to excel.

Will they? We don’t know. Can they? Despite being an absolute powerhouse in the great game of cricket, India aren’t unbeatable, much like Australia.

What we also know is that the forthcoming T20I series will hopefully be a closely contested one where fans will fill Stadia not just to support the home team but with the added anticipation to see evenly contested contests. Here are the 7 players to watch out for in the T20I leg of Bangladesh’s tour of India.

Najmul Hossain Shanto

The captain of the team decked in passionate red colors will, for starters, like the team to play like the nickname it adorns: Tigers. For Bangladesh to roar, little else could get better than having its own leader to play like a tiger. Shanto is talented, bold, and a risk-taker who combines watchfulness with patience. Will that combination yield victory for a side that craves for it in the yet-to-begin series?

We shall have to wait to see. But what is evident is that the batter will perform with keenness in order to lead by example, especially at the back of an ordinary series. Shanto didn’t score a solitary fifty.

What’s worse, he had to face the brunt of a horrible Test outing. Despite having talents like Shakib, an all-time great of the game, and someone like Litton Das, Shanto’s team produced underwhelming results.

Moreover, his own T20I form in 2024 has been anything but sparkling. How so?

Let’s see some numbers

Despite playing 17 games so far this year, and the year is far from over, Bangladesh’s captain has managed just 306 runs. Think that is ordinary? Where it stands, the left-hander’s average is under 20, and the strike rate is barely over 100.  

Mustafizur Rahman

One of the most promising and exciting talents to watch in the world of fast bowling, Mustafizur Rahman brings a sense of commitment to the national side and is an asset to any Bangladesh playing XI.

His very presence in the T20I side should lift the hopes of a team that would love to see the left-arm medium pacer perform well. But will he?

With the innate ability to affect dismissals in the power play and death overs, Rahman has been the pick of the bowlers for his team for the past half a decade.

During this time, he’s excelled at swing, improved his ability to produce slower bouncers, and found a way to come back into the game despite being picked for runs during lean phases for his side. His team would want nothing other than that.

Let’s see some numbers of one of Bangladesh’s most talented wicket-takers

Mustafizur has picked 128 wickets from just 103 T20Is, which is a fine record in itself. However, in so doing, he’s recorded an economy of 7.4 and an enviable bowling average of just 17.2.

In this year alone, the speedster has picked 23 wickets from 15 games, which included a career-best performance of 6 for 10. Read that again: six wickets while conceding just ten runs. Satkhira’s finest gift to Bangladeshi fast bowling would want to test the menacing bats of Rohit Sharma and company.

Litton Das

Here’s a fact you might find interesting about Litton Das. The elegant right-hander has played more T20I games vs. Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, and the West Indies than India. But the little he has played the subcontinental giants, he’s excelled in the game’s briefest format.

His numbers against India

He has scored 170 runs from just 8 matches at a strike rate of 146 against India. Though he has scored just a solitary fifty against India, it seems that Litton Das has been at ease against a team that has exceptional pace and spin-bowling talent.

It’s just the kind of strength that Shanto and his teammates would expect of a senior and established batter like Das.

Abhishek Sharma

Mentored by Lara and supported by Yuvraj Singh, someone he’s a massive fan of, what could be better for one of the game’s finest and rising left-handers? While Abhishek Sharma’s IPL season was an understudy in destructive batting, he’d peaked in just his second-ever T20 international that he played for India. Against Zimbabwe, Sharma scored a thunderous century, a 47-ball-100 that featured 8 sixes.

This mayhem-making event enabled India to claw back in the series after having been drubbed in the opening T20I.

But against Bangladesh, which is the first time for him, Abhishek Sharma would look to begin afresh and a new and bring some solid hits to the fore.

He’s also got some interesting numbers

From just 5 T20Is under his belt, Abhishek Sharma has scored 124 runs but at a strike rate of 174. 90 of those runs have come by way of fours and sixes (combined).

Washington Sundar

Sundar is a fine all-rounder whose best days lie ahead of him. However, the talented lad who’s already made his Test debut doesn’t always get a chance in white ball cricket in occasional spurts, not continued runs. Even then, the 24-year-old with a fifty to his name in the shortest format of the game is approaching some sort of a milestone.

In the next few days, should he be picked in India’s playing eleven, having already made it to the squad, the earnest young man will mark his 50th T20I appearance for the country. Sundar has already claimed 44 international wickets in the format and boasts of a fantastic bowling economy of under 7. He’s not the easiest of spinners to hit out of the ground. Therefore, Bangladesh ought to be more careful.

Sanju Samson

The dangerous and ever-entertaining right-hander from Kerala has become a bit of a cult figure when it comes to white-ball cricket in India. And yet, at the same time, Sanju Samson, the captain of Rajasthan Royals in the IPL and a favorite of Dr. Shashi Tharoor, has become a central figure in cricketing debates around India.

There is a feeling that Sanju isn’t persistent with that often when it comes to national jersey, and if and when he does, he tends not to deliver satisfactory results from the bat consistently.

On social media, which can get into a tizzy about the smallest of things, Sanju Samson is both a wonderful batter and someone subjected to frequent bashing.

Why?

Ask the troll armies. But what can’t be doubted is the majestic timing and effortless hitting that the right-hander who looks up to Rahul Dravid brings to the middle.

Against Bangladesh, Sanju Samson would be most interested in consistently delivering runs, having never played against Shanto’s team before.

So, what do his numbers look like?

From 30 T20Is in an Indian jersey, the belligerent right-hander has already amassed 444 runs. That’s at an average of 19, which is ordinary but at a commanding strike rate of over 131. But then there’s also a bit of a concerning stat in there. 4 of his 26 outings in T20I’s have resulted in a duck. It’s just the thing the man with a warm smile would like to avoid.

Suryakumar Yadav

Enterprising, innovative, and dangerous, Indian T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav is all this and more. In fact, he’s to whiteball cricket what an entrepreneur is to a growing economy. He’ll take risks, grow, and believe in himself even in adversity. Someone who’s already earned recognition thanks to comparisons with AB de Villiers, Suryakumar Yadav is India’s bold answer to the T20I growing template. Moreover, as captain, he’s only growing in responsibility and his game.

In his most recent T20I series, the right-hander from Mumbai scored a fine 92 runs from 3 games versus Sri Lanka. That included a powerful 58. On the whole, Sky, as he’s famously called, has scored in excess of 2,400 runs for his country in just 71 games. This includes four fabulous centuries, something that not even a giant like Virat Kohli has to his name. The legendary former skipper has a ton to his name in the said format.

Related