Australia's tour of Bangladesh for a five-match T20 series in August will go ahead despite an alarming spike in Covid-19 cases in this country, according to a media report. Quoting unnamed sources, The Sydney Morning Herald has reported that Cricket Australia is satisfied with the bio-security arrangements that the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has promised to provide the players during the tour. Read:Tamim to miss home series against Australia, New Zealand Meanwhile, the BCB has announced the itinerary for the August tour. The visiting side will play five T20 internationals against the hosts at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Mirpur, Dhaka. The Australians will arrive in Dhaka on 29 July. BCB's chief executive Nizam Uddin Chowdhury said, “The BCB and Cricket Australia have worked tirelessly together for confirming the itinerary. Naturally this was a challenge due to the Covid-19 pandemic as ensuring health safety and security is a priority prerequisite for holding any cricket series in these times. "I am pleased to say that a comprehensive bio-security plan is in place and will be implemented during the tour for the protection of players and staff of the two teams and the match officials. We are really looking forward to an exciting and enjoyable contest between Bangladesh and Australia." The tour had looked a solid prospect until the Bangladesh government eased the lockdown restrictions for eight days for the holy festival of Eid-ul-Adha, raising concerns about the Covid situation in the country. Read:Tamim, Shohan guide Tigers to ODI series sweep against Zimbabwe Health experts in Australia, including the chief of the national advisory committee to Covid-19, have criticised the move. They have warned the ease could fuel the already devastating Covid situation of the country. Despite that, Cricket Australia is reportedly happy with Bangladesh's proposed bio-security arrangements for the tour. BCB had earlier proposed that Cricket Australia split the series into two venues in Dhaka and Chattogram, which the latter disagreed due to the grim Covid-19 situation.  The Australia cricket team will take a chartered flight from the Caribbean, where they are touring currently, to Dhaka next week. They will travel to the team hotel directly from the airport. While travelling to the team hotel from the airport, the Australian team members will not require traditional immigration procedures at the airport to avert Covid-19 risks. Read:Chakabva, Raza, Burl propel Zimbabwe to 298 in 3rd ODI The Australian cricket team was scheduled to tour Bangladesh in June 2020 for a Test series, which was a part of the World Test Championship. But due to the Covid-19 situation then, they had cancelled the tour. However, the Covid-19 situation then was better than now. Meanwhile, Bangladesh national team is touring Zimbabwe for a one-off Test, three ODIs and three T20s. The Test and ODIs had already been played, and won by the Tigers. The T20 series is set to kick off on Thursday at the Harare Sports Club.

On March 31, 1986, Bangladesh met Pakistan in their first-ever international match and they were defeated by 7 wickets in that contest. Bangladesh have played 123 Tests, 385 ODIs, and 99 Twenty20 Internationals since their international debut more than three decades ago. Tigers’ national side won 179, lost 402, drew 17, and 9 had no outcomes out of 607 international matches. Bangladesh have had 18 captains so far, across all the formats, with Mashrafe Mortaza being the only one who led the team in more than 100 games. This article discusses, who is the best Bangladesh cricket captain of all time? The records There have been some good skippers through the years, which makes selecting one difficult. Gazi Ashraf Hossain Lipu (7), Minhazul Abedin (2), Akram Khan (15), Aminul Islam Bulbul (16), and Naimur Rahman Durjoy (11) all struggled as Bangladesh captains in the beginning. Among them, Akram Khan won one match while Aminul Islam Bulbul won two matches as captain for Bangladesh.  Read: West Indies Suffer Innings Defeat; New Zealand Win Series Against England Later, Khaled Mashud and Khaled Mahmud captained Bangladesh in 42 and 24 matches, respectively. Bangladesh won four matches under Mashud's captaincy, but not a single match under Mahmud's captaincy.  Bangladesh started tasting that winning feeling even close to consistently since Habibul Bashar took over as captain of the national side in 2004. Bangladesh also won its first Test match under his leadership in 2005. Habibul Bashar captained the team tigers in 87 matches, winning 30 of them and losing 53. Habibul is the third-best captain in terms of wins and unquestionably one of the best captains in Bangladesh cricket history.  Read: Bangladesh will undergo one-day quarantine in Zimbabwe Mohammad Ashraful led the Bangladesh national team as captain from 2007 to 2009. Bangladesh only won ten under his captaincy out of 62 matches. He was known to be an inconsistent skipper, similar to batter Ashraful.  Mushfiqur Rahim led the Bangladesh national team in some format or the other for six years in a row from 2011 to 2017. Bangladesh won 26 games and lost 56 under his captaincy. In terms of numbers, he led Bangladesh in the second most matches (94). Interestingly Bangladesh won its highest number of Tests under his leadership, including two historic Tests against England and Australia when Mushfiqur was captain.  Bangladesh won its second-most matches (33) under Shakib Al Hasan's leadership. Shakib captained the team in a total of 85 games, and won 38.82% of their matches. They lost 51 matches when Shakib was in charge.  Read: BCB stages a trainwreck around Shakib’s latest episode Mashrafe Mortaza captained Bangladesh in the most matches (117). Despite captaining for the first time in 2009, Mashrafe led the Bangladesh limited-over teams on a consistent basis from 2015 to the 2019 World Cup. The Bangladesh national cricket team evolved dramatically under his leadership during this period. Team Tigers won the most ODIs (50) and T20Is (10) matches when he was the captain. He is the only one who comes even close to a win rate above 50% (60/117). So 'Mash' is the only one who can say that under him, we won a majority of our games. That's why many people consider Mashrafe is the best Bangladesh cricket captain ever.  Tamim Iqbal (13), Mahmudullah Riyad (20), and Mominul Haque (8) are the current captains of Bangladesh ODI, T20I, and Test respectively. Their contribution as captains may be evaluated after a few more years.   Read: Has Shakib learned from his mistakes? Verdict We have evaluated the records of all captains in order to identify who is the best Bangladesh cricket captain? Mashrafe Mortaza has proven to be the most successful captain, which is why he is known as Captain Fantastic. However, the majority of Mashrafe's success as captain came in the ODI format. Bangladesh have always performed well in limited-overs cricket, and team tigers has had a lot of success in the international arena in the last 6/7 years thanks to Mashrafe's leadership qualities. However, no skipper has a decent record in the other two formats, and Bangladesh is yet to master the formula of getting consistent success in the T20 and Test formats. 

Mosaddek Hossain has been ruled out of the intra-squad practice game of the Bangladesh national team due to a knee injury.

Bangladesh left-arm pacer Mustafizur Rahman on Tuesday said he will always prefer playing for the national team over anything if the board selects him.

On the first day of first two-day intra-squad of Bangladesh national team, Saif Hassan and Soumya Sarkar hit the fifties while Taskin Ahmed and Taijul Islam shone with the ball taking three wickets each. 

Bangladesh national team and Bangladesh U-19 national team to resume bio-secure residential training camp on Thursday.

After the long hiatus forced by the Covid-19 pandemic, recently it was announced that the Bangladesh national team would return to the international stage with a 3-Test series against Sri Lanka, for which preparations are underway already.

After an eventful career spanning 20 years, veteran right-arm pacer Mohammad Sharif announced his retirement from First-class cricket on Saturday.

Mashrafe Bin Mortaza and Shakib Al Hasan have been excluded from the newly-announced central contract of the 16-member national cricketers in three different categories.

Bangladesh national team will fly to Rawalpindi, Pakistan on Tuesday to play the first Test of the two-match series against Pakistan starting from February 7.