Hello and welcome to the Live Blog for Match 23 of the ICC T20 World Cup 2021 featuring West Indies and Bangladesh at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium. Hit refresh for latest updates. You can follow ball-by-ball here.

We’re minutes away from play

Toss and teams:

West Indies batting first for the third time in this World Cup.Mahmudullah wins the toss and has no hesitation in opting to bowl. Two changes for West Indies. Lendl Simmons and Hayden Walsh Jnr make was for Roston Chase and Jason Holder. Chase is playing his first T20I for West Indies while Pollard also confirms that Gayle will open. Bangladesh bring in Soumya Sarkar and Taskin Ahmed in place of Nurul Hasan and Nasum Ahmed.

West Indies (Playing XI): Chris Gayle, Evin Lewis, Roston Chase, Nicholas Pooran (wk), Shimron Hetmyer, Kieron Pollard (c), Andre Russell, Jason Holder, Dwayne Bravo, Akeal Hosein, Ravi Rampaul

Bangladesh (Playing XI): Soumya Sarkar, Mohammad Naim, Liton Das (wk), Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mahmudullah (c), Afif Hossain, Mahedi Hasan, Shoriful Islam, Mustafizur Rahman, Taskin Ahmed

Build-up

Batting has been West Indies’ main problem in this edition of the T20 World Cup, leading to their two losses, and time is quickly running out for them. They need to find the right balance between attack and caution. In their two games so far, they’ve paid the price for tilting too far one side, and will be looking to set that in order right from the top. Bangladesh have blown hot and cold with the bat, and have fallen short in smarts to outplay the opposition match-ups as well as the conditions at play. They too have two losses and one more loss could prove too costly for them. Read the full preview here.

Also Read:

Teams batting first undone by conservative approach at the top – Despite the teams picking batting heavy XIs in the ongoing T20 World Cup, the approach has been largely conservative, resulting in below par totals. Deepu Narayanan analyses this in the latest Trend Talk.

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