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The Bangladesh national team will begin their busy schedule with the three-match T20I series against the Netherlands, starting today at the Sylhet International Stadium. 

The match is scheduled to begin at 6:00pm Bangladesh Standard Time and T Sports will telecast it live. 

This will be the first competitive match for most of the players in the squad since the T20I series against Pakistan, which concluded on July 24. 

Bangladesh will head into the series with back-to-back series wins, as they beat both Sri Lanka and Pakistan by 2-1. 

The series is considered to be a warm-up for the Liton Das-led team ahead of the Asia Cup. 

Bangladesh will head into the Asia Cup, which is scheduled to begin on September 9 in the UAE—just five days after the Netherlands series. 

They will then play a white-ball series consisting of three T20Is and ODIs each against Afghanistan in the UAE starting on October 14. 

However, head coach Phil Simmons wants to focus on the current series.

‘Well, you have to run the preliminaries before you get to the final [of the Asia Cup],’ Simmons said in a press conference in Sylhet on Friday. ‘I’m not thinking about the Asia Cup. The Asia Cup comes after this.’

‘This is an international series against an international team. That’s where our focus is, on the series,’ he added. 

Simmons also echoed his captain’s thought when he reminded everyone that the Netherlands is just like any international team and it would be challenging. 

He said, ‘We are playing three T20 internationals. And once you say ‘internationals’, it’s an international team. They’ve played in the last two World Cups.

‘They’ve done well when they’ve played in the World Cup. So, I don’t think I can see us underrating anybody. You know, in world cricket now, you don’t underrate people.’

Bangladesh have recalled Nurul Hasan and Saif Hassan into the squad, who made a return to the side after almost three and two years, respectively. 

But Simmons wants to maintain the standards, rather than taking this series as an opportunity to try out some combinations. 

‘I don’t know what you consider an ideal situation. For me, anytime you play international cricket, it’s an ideal situation because you have to maintain a certain standard,’ he said. 

‘If we play against teams higher up, we still have to play at a certain level for us to win the series. So, for us, it’s about maintaining and improving what we’ve done in Sri Lanka,’ he added. 

‘And I don’t see it as who is in front of us. It’s more about how we play and how we continue to improve,’ he further added. 

However, according to Simmons, Shamim Hossain is set to miss the first match due to an injury. There have been concerns around the opener Parvez Hossain too. 

‘Patwari [Shamim], the last five or six days, he’s been very good. He’s done a lot. He’s done everything we did today. So, he’s back up to fitness,’ he said.

‘Emon [Parvez], he hurt his shoulder, yes, but he’s been fine. He did everything today. He’s passed fit. So, they’re both fit to play, but I think that Patwari is going to need a few more days,’ Simmons added. 

Bangladesh are supposed to host the West Indies for another white-ball series consisting of a similar set of matches against Afghanistan in October. 

That will be followed by a three-format series in November, according to the future tour programme of the ICC.