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The Asia Cup final on Sunday sees a clash between India and host nations Bangladesh at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka. India have finished as group leaders after an unbroken run of 4 wins in the round of league matches, while Bangladesh finished at second spot with 3 wins.
Also read: ICC T20 World Cup 2016 Schedule
While Bangladesh are raring to win the Asia Cup championship for the first time, India too have some records to set straight. Though having been a dominating team in the early years of the inception of the Asia Cup, India have managed to clinch the trophy only once since 1995.
Sri Lanka and Pakistan, who have shared the majority of the Asia Cup championship triumphs in the last two decades, find themselves in woeful form at present and were pipped to the second spot by Bangladesh, who have been riding on a crest since the 2015 World Cup.
India vs Bangladesh 2016 LIVE streaming details
TV Channel: Star Sports 1, HD1 (English) and 3, HD3 (Hindi)
Online Stream: www.starsports.com
Date: 06 March 2016, Sunday
Time: 07:00 PM IST, 07:30 PM local, 01:30 PM GMT
Venue: Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur, Dhaka.
For live scores and updates, visit Sportskeeda’s live card.
Team News
India
India have seemingly ticked all the boxes heading into the crucial final. After convincing victories over their three major rivals, they managed to test their bench strength against UAE, and the success that the stand-byes garnered have raised questions on the ideal composition of the ideal playing XI.
The one element which hasn’t been on par with the rest of the team has been the low-on-confidence opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan. Questions continue to hang around his place in the team, but it highly unlikely that the winning combination will be tinkered with in the final. Ajinkya Rahane, as ever, waits in the stands.
India are favourites to win without a doubt, but need to turn up for the occasion to win a second Asia Cup trophy in the last twenty years.
Bangladesh
Left-arm pacer Mustafizur Rahman’s side strain ruling him out has come as a blow for the Tigers, but they are raring for another chance at defeating their traditionally superior neighbours. To compensate, they have brought back the experience of Tamim Iqbal at the top of the order.
Taskin Ahmed has taken up primary bowling responsibilities for Bangladesh, as has Al-Amin Hossain, who has ten wickets from four matches. Sabbir Rahman has been the shining light for Bangladesh with the bat, but others have raised their hands in times of need as well.
The Mirpur crowd’s frenzied support can play a part in the outcome as well. Playing in The Tigers’ den has become an intimidating prospect of late, as India will remember from the 2-1 defeat inflicted on them in the bilateral ODI series they played in 2015.
There is some trepidation about the availability of Shakib al Hasan, who was hit by a ball on the left thigh during training on Friday.
India vs Bangladesh Teams (Predicted XI)
India XI
Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Hardik Pandya, MS Dhoni (c, wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ashish Nehra, Jasprit Bumrah.
Bangladesh XI
Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Sabbir Rahman, Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), Shakib Al Hasan, Mahmudullah, Mohammad Mithun, Mashrafe Mortaza(c), Taskin Ahmed, A Sunny, Al-Amin Hossain
India vs Bangladesh Pitch & Conditions
The Asia Cup pitches have been hard to score runs on, but the indications are that the final could be a higher scoring match than the group matches. The venom of the pitches has seemed to go down as the tournament has wore on, and the Sri Lanka-Pakistan match was the first match in the tournament when both teams crossed 150.
There has been cloud cover forecast for Sunday as well, so there will be joy for Ashish Nehra and co as well. As has been the case throughout, the team that manages to play the powerplay overs well are likely to take control of the match.
Recent Form
India: W-W-W-W-W (most recent first)
Bangladesh: W-W-W-L-L
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