Litton: We'll bowl first. First game for us, don't know how the pitch will behave so looking to bowl. Have played very good cricket in the last three series but these are different conditions. Three seamers, two spinners and six batters. Every game is important for us. Have to give 100 percent.Murtaza: Wanted to bat first. We got what we wanted. Made few mistakes in the middle with the batters in the last game. Whatever has happened has happened in the past. New day today.Tonight's match takes place at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi which has so far hosted 91 T20 matches. Teams batting first in this venue have won 42 times while the teams chasing have won 49 times. The highest score ever in this ground was 225/7 by Ireland vs Afghanistan which the Irish won by 68 runs.When it comes to the top bowlers of the tournament so far, India's Kuldeep Yadav leads the roost with his 4-wicket haul against UAE on Wednesday. He is followed by Shivam Dube who took 3 and Gulbadin Naib rounds up the Top 3. They are followed by Fazalhaq Farooqi and Kinchit Shah of Hong Kong in the Top 5From the top of the pile, India gnash their teeth, the sport’s invulnerable powerhouse. The next Asian side, Sri Lanka, is six spots beneath them. Behind them are clustered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, in one chunk, reflecting the diminishing prowess of the Asian bloc. Asian teams, with the passion and talent supply, apart from the T20 leagues, were touted to dominate the shortest format. But it has not quite unfolded the predicted way.In this time of despair, an adolescent Hussain, his world revolving around tape-ball tennis in the dry, parched fields, picked up a cricket ball and found that he was releasing the ball from his wrists, not finger. “The first time I picked the ball, I gripped it like a leg-spinner. It came naturally to me, and I stuck with it,” Rishad said in an interview with Daily Star. His childhood coach Arman Ali didn’t bother to tweak or tamper with what came naturally to him. “I didn’t change because there was no need to change,” says Ali, aka Monu bhai. “He was raw but had a spark, because of his height got good bounce, was brisk. He had to develop control, but the talent was there and took wickets in heaps in school cricket,” he says. (READ MORE)As of now, the highest run-scorers' list have been dominated by Afghanistan which is no secret due to their thumping win against Hong Kong in their previous match. India have also played their first match but they had such a apaltry score to chase vs UAE, their batters didn't have the opportunity to score runs.Sediqullah Atal (AFG), Azmatullah Omarzai (AFG), Babar Hayat (HK), Mohammad Nabi (AFG) and Abhishek Sharma (IND) are currently the top 5 batters of the tournament.Hong Kong have started off their Asia Cup campaign with a 94-run loss to Afghanistan and it'll basically be game over for them if they fall to Bangladesh as well, which looking at BAN's run of form coming into the tournament, seems pretty likely. They'll then have only a match left vs Sri Lanka, which to be fair, might also be out of their reach and they are in the danger of not even opening their points tally. But a win against BAN might change all that.Bangladesh comes into the Asia Cup on the back of bilateral series win against Netherlands, Pakistan as well as Sri Lanka. They defeated Netherlands earlier this month 2-0 and before that in July, put down Pakistan 2-1. Also in July, they snapped up a 2-1 series win against Sri Lanka as well.Bangladesh and Hong Kong have faced each other just once in their history, back in 2014 where the Bangla Tigers coming up trumps with a 2 wicket win.It's time for the second match of Group B as Bangladesh begin their Asia Cup campaign against minnow Hong Kong., who have already lost convincingly to Afghanistan in their opening match. things won't get easier for them on Thursday as well as they take on one of the most consistent T20I teams in the past one year in Bangladesh. Can they pull off an upset or will it be business as usual? Find out in our live blog here.
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