The one-day international (ODI) series between Bangladesh- Zimbabwe begins Friday at Zahur Ahmed Stadium at Chittagong. Both the teams are still considered as weaker sides, they may play low quality cricket but will be competitive.
This series is very important in terms of ranking as well. Whichever team wins the series will narrow their gap with 8 other teams in ODI ranking. Both the teams are test playing sides but their overall performance is not satisfactory.Bangladesh have not won any ODI this year, on the other hand Zimbabwe managed to beat Australia in an ODI recently but were beaten quite badly in other ODIs. In the next world cup in 2019 top 8 ODI teams will play directly and bottom 2 teams will play a qualifier with top associate sides.
Associate sides are improving rapidly and are almost equal to the strength of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. Two top associate side Ireland and Afghanistan have already beaten these two weak test sides couple of times in ODIs.
