Australia arrive in Dhaka for five T20Is

Australia cricket team reached Dhaka Thursday evening for the five-match T20I series against hosts Bangladesh.

On the same day in the morning, Bangladesh cricket team returned home following a month-long tour of Zimbabwe.

Both Bangladesh and Australia side were taken to the team hotel in the capital from the airport, and set to undergo their first Covid-19 test Thursday.

The teams will be in three-day long room quarantine and upon testing negative for Covid-19, they will be allowed to take to the nets at Mirpur Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium for two days - Sunday and Monday - before the series starts.

The five T20Is will be held behind closed doors in Mirpur on August 3, 4, 6, 7 and 9 respectively.

Australia have travelled to Bangladesh completing their tour of the West Indies.

The tourists during the tour had a Covid-19 scare after positive case got reported inside the bio-secured bubble, and forced the postponement of the second ODI in Barbados.

The series resumed after all 152 people involved in the series returned negative Covid-19 tests.

Australia played their last game of the tour of the Caribbean, third ODI, Monday.

Australia earlier in the tour lost the five-match T20I series 4-1, but won the three-match ODI series 2-1 against the Caribbean side.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh bagged a hat-trick of trophies in Zimbabwe winning the lone Test, a three-match ODI series 3-0 and the T20I series by 2-1.

Bangladesh in the series will be missing opener Tamim Iqbal and wicketkeeper-batsmen Mushfiqur Rahim and Liton Das.

Tamim has been ruled out of action for at least two months due to a knee injury.

Mushfiq and Liton are fit but are not being allowed to play given that they could not keep to the terms of the Covid-19 protocol for the series.

Both Mushfiq and Liton had to get out from the bio-bubble in Zimbabwe and return home due to family emergencies.

The series is the first ever bilateral T20I series between the two teams, Australia's fourth ever tour of Bangladesh for a bilateral series, and their first visit since 2017 after their proposed Test campaign here last year was called off due to the Covid-19 pandemic.