The Bangladesh men’s cricket team upset the majority of the cricket fans in their first of two matches in the T20I series against the UAE on Sunday (September 25). The team Tigers had a difficult outing overall and just narrowly won the contest by 7 runs. With less than three weeks left before the T20 World Cup 2022 begins, the expectation from Bangladesh is to show a commanding performance against the ICC’s associate nation, UAE. Can the Tigers fulfill the expectations in the Bangladesh vs UAE second match of the series? Bangladesh vs UAE 2022: Second T20I Match Preview Bangladesh have a 2-0 advantage in head-to-head contests over the United Arab Emirates and will start as favourites to win the second T20I as well as the series. However, all eyes will be on how the Bangladesh players fare in the contest. The match will start at 8 p.m. (Bangladesh Standard Time) at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Tuesday (September 27). Read: Bangladesh squad for Women's T20 Asia Cup announced Bangladesh Bangladesh’s overall team performance in the first match wasn’t up to the mark, failing to impress the majority of the fans. Bangladesh’s captain for the series, Nurul Hasan Sohan, did well in the fielding setup and bowling rotation. Nurul’s outing as a power hitter in the lower middle order was decent; he scored 35 runs off 25 balls. Afif Hossain impressed everyone with his aggression with the bat. He remained unbeaten with 77 with 140 strike rates. Except for these two batters, others failed miserably, and at one stage they seemed to finish the innings well below 150. Solid performances from the top order and from the middle orders will be expected in the second match. In particular, the focus will be on the batters strike rates. Left-arm pacer Shoriful Islam and off-spinner Mehidy Hasan Miraz were the two successful bowlers for Bangladesh in the series opener. They both scalped 3 wickets each with an economy rate of under 6. However, what’s more worrying is that the team’s premier fast bowler, Mustafizur Rahman, failed to put pressure on the opposition batting line-up despite picking up two wickets. The Tigers' go-to spinner, Nasum Ahmed, was also ineffective, and medium pacer Mohammad Saifuddin, was the costliest bowler of the match. The BCB now needs to rethink whether they were expecting unrealistically from Saifuddin. The right-hand pacer hasn’t been able to fulfill his expectations in recent series. He has snatched 18 wickets in 16 outings with an economy rate of 8.17 since January 2021. The important thing is to consider that the majority of his successes have come against weaker opponents or in familiar conditions. Saifuddin’s inclusion in the World Cup squad may not turn out as expected as the Cricket Board hoped for. The Tigers' bowling unit needs to come up with a better plan and show a dominant performance in the second match against the UAE. Predicted Playing XI (Bangladesh) Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Sabbir Rahman, Litton Das, Afif Hossain, Yasir Ali, Mosaddek Hossain, Nurul Hasan (captain & wicket-keeper), Nasum Ahmed, Mohammad Saifuddin, Mustafizur Rahman, Shoriful Islam Read: Shakib Al Hasan shines in Caribbean Premier League UAE The United Arab Emirates side will be delighted with the way they performed against Bangladesh in the first match of the 2-match Twenty20 International series. The UAE bowlers kept pressure on the Bangladesh batting unit till the halfway stage and were controlling the innings. Afif Hossain and Nurul Hasan came to the rescue, putting on an unbeaten 81*-run stand to help Bangladesh post a challenging total. Sabir Ali, Aayan Afzal Khan, and Karthik Meiyappan had fruitful outings against the Bangladesh batters with better economy rates. They will once again be important in the second match. Chirag Suri and Aayan Afzal Khan went after the Bangladesh bowling unit, and they weren’t hesitant to play strokes in the middle. In the series finale, these two batters will look to put pressure on the visiting side bowlers, so Bangladesh must be ready to deal with their aggression. There were other batters who started well but couldn’t prolong their innings, so they will try to have better outings in the second match. Predicted Playing XI (UAE) Muhammad Waseem, Chirag Suri, Aryan Lakra, Vriitya Aravind (wicket-keeper), Chundangapoyil Rizwan (captain), Basil Hameed, Aayan Afzal Khan, Zawar Farid, Karthik Meiyappan, Junaid Siddique, Sabir Ali Read: Bangladesh champions of ICC Women's T20 World Cup Qualifier 2022 Bangladesh vs United Arab Emirates Second T20I: Weather Prediction and Toss The temperature in Dubai on Tuesday will likely be pleasant with an expected 34 degrees Celsius. Even though Bangladesh won the first match by defending a 150+ total, the recent statistics indicate that the chasing team has a way better record than batting first. The toss-winning team, therefore, may opt to field first. Bottom Line Bangladesh showed a disappointing performance in the first of the 2-match series against the UAE ahead of the upcoming T20 World Cup. The performance of most of the players in the team was very disappointing. Therefore, everyone in the Tigers' playing XI should be more focused on their duties and committed to performing well in the Bangladesh vs UAE second Twenty20 International. Read: A narrow escape: Bangladesh beat UAE by 7 runs in 1st T20

Bangladesh women beat Ireland by 7 runs and Bangladesh men beat UAE by 7 runs in a rare coincidence, but it meant two very different reactions. The women’s team took the WC Qualifiers trophy three times in a row with yesterday’s victory, though Ireland fought hard. Bangladesh men also played a practice match against a lowly rated UAE and had a close win, but it was embarrassing to watch. One team is going up while the other is in decline. Read: A narrow escape: Bangladesh beat UAE by 7 runs in 1st T20 The Women Bangladesh and Ireland Women, the two finalists, had already reached the World Cup stage, so the stake was low. However, it showed some interesting features. The BD Women’s team is strong, but it still lacks the killer blow delivery capacity that a team needs to win on the global stage. Bangladesh did win the Asia Cup, beating India, but India has gone ahead and beat England last week. The West Indies men's team is not particularly strong, but their women's team—previous cup winners—is. So Bangladesh had better watch out about the possibility of bad days on the big stage. Both India and Pakistan have also improved, and India’s 3-0 win against England last week is a reminder that while we did beat them, it’s not the same team anymore. And SA and others have better records than us. One reason why the women’s team is not pushing up as much as it could be is a lack of sponsorship and investment. Globally, women’s cricket has yet to catch on, so ICC dole money is low for the qualifying countries. The media has only recently begun to get interested, and so promoting it as a money-making sport is important. This is already happening, but not enough. But betting sites are already active, which means more crowds and that will hopefully translate into funds for Women cricket. Performance wise, Bangladesh women still remain inconsistent. Its batting is below par and the fall of 8 wickets in 5 overs, including 3 in the last, means much more improvement is needed. While others are hitting sixes, BDW rarely do. Its strength remains in bowling, but a difference of only 7 runs in the final means it could have gone the other way. What was least impressive was the fielding. The girls didn't look fit and seemed sluggish in running and releasing the ball back. It was obvious Ireland took advantage of that to accumulate. But they won, and that is great. Read: Bangladesh champions of ICC Women's T20 World Cup Qualifier 2022 And the Men ? The least said about the men, the better. They were perfect clowns on the field and could neither bat nor bowl. Their fielding was spectacular as everyone, from commentators to spectators, ran out of words to describe them. If they have to sweat so much to beat an associate status team   I think everyone should accept that it’s also at that level and not the test status. So we will suffer more as we watch the men get bashed by everyone in the next WC. We will keep our fingers crossed and hope to get some relief from the women's team's WC performance in South Africa next February. Read: Shakib Al Hasan shines in Caribbean Premier League

Bangladesh won the first of the two-match T20I series against hosts UAE by seven runs Sunday night in Dubai. Put in to bat first, the Tigers scored 158-5. Chasing 159, UAE batted well but fell short of seven runs. Chirag Suri scored 39 off 24 balls and kept the UAE's hopes alive. Aayan Afzal Khan scored 25 off 17 balls. Shoriful Islam bagged three wickets, and Mehidy Hasan Miraz also picked up as many wickets. Earlier, Afif Hossain smashed an unbeaten 77 off 58 balls to guide Bangladesh to 158-5 against the hosts. The Tigers lost three wickets in the powerplay.