The Daily Morning Voice Online Desk: India have won the toss and elected to bat first in the opening game of the two-match Test series against Bangladesh at Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium, Chattogram, on Wednesday. The match kicks off at 9.30 am local time and will be aired live on Gazi Television and T Sports Channel. Zakir Hasan has made a debut who impressed for Bangladesh A with a 173-run knock against India A.
Bangladesh (Playing XI): Zakir Hasan, Najmul Hossain Shanto, Litton Das, Shakib Al Hasan(c), Mushfiqur Rahim, Yasir Ali, Nurul Hasan(w), Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Taijul Islam, Khaled Ahmed, Ebadot Hossain.
India (Playing XI): Shubman Gill, KL Rahul(c), Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant(w), Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Siraj.
The series is the part of ICC World Test Championship where the Tigers are languished at the bottom place with just one victory and one draw from their 10 matches. The victory was a landmark one as they won a Test on New Zealand soil where Asian teams like India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka always struggled. The only draw came against Sri Lanka in their last Test series at home this year in Chattogram. But Bangladesh have not won a Test at home since February 2020 and have never beaten India anywhere in 11 matches in this format. They drew twice but that too courtesy of the rain. Nonetheless, Bangladesh remained competitive against their opponents at home and abroad in the last couple of years but their failure to prop up the game at the crucial moments cost them dearly. In ODI cricket too, they failed to nail the crucial moments, especially against India abroad but in this home series, they overcame that problem to beat India by 2-1 in the three-match ODI series. The Tigers want to do just that thing in Test series also to snap their losing streak in the longer version format, in which they proved them vulnerable time and again.