Bangladesh vs New Zealand 1st ODI 2023 Dream11 Picks: Mirpur, Resting Six and the Fantasy Slate That Opened the World Cup Window

The fixture

A World Cup dress rehearsal staged 72 hours before the real thing began

The 1st ODI between Bangladesh and New Zealand was played at the Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur, on Thursday 21 September 2023, starting at 1:30 PM IST and 2:00 PM local Dhaka time. The match was the first of a three-game series that the two boards had used as the final tune-up before the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2023, which began in Ahmedabad three days later on 24 September. Live streaming in India was on Fancode. The fixture mattered less for the ODI Super League table than for what it told fantasy users about the playing pool that was about to take the field in the World Cup proper.

Both teams went in with a second-string XI. Bangladesh rested Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Taskin Ahmed, Hasan Mahmud and Shoriful Islam ahead of the World Cup, recalled Tamim Iqbal and Mahmudullah, and handed the captaincy to Liton Das. New Zealand, rebuilding after the Cricket World Cup 2023 squad had been finalised a fortnight earlier, were led by Lockie Ferguson and included a top order built around Finn Allen, Chad Bowes, Will Young and Henry Nicholls, with Rachin Ravindra, Adam Milne, Kyle Jamieson, Ish Sodhi and Trent Boult rounding out the side. The Dream11 brief on this fixture, as the IGN India fantasy desk wrote on 22 September 2023, was to read it less as a bilateral result and more as the last open audition before the showpiece event.

What the Shere Bangla surface was doing in late September 2023

The Mirpur square in late September 2023 was a slow, low, turning track. The grass cover had been trimmed back for the evening matches earlier in the Bangladesh home season and the dry weather through the preceding week had baked the top surface to a brownish colour that had been the source of conversation in the local press. Spinners had been the dominant wicket-takers on the square through September, and the toss-time call on the eve of the 1st ODI was expected to read as a bat-first decision: a 260-280 first-innings score, with risk of slowdown through the middle overs, was the read the surface supported, and the dew window was forecast to settle in by the second innings, which is the timing detail fantasy users had to anchor their captaincy call to.

Two Mirpur facts shaped the IGN India fantasy brief in particular. First, Bangladesh had not won a bilateral ODI series against New Zealand in their previous three attempts, and the home crowd had not seen a Bangladesh series win over the Black Caps in this format for a generation of players. Second, the recent form lines going in read W L L W L for Bangladesh and L L L W W for New Zealand, with Bangladesh having been knocked out of the Asia Cup 2023 in the early stages but having beaten champions India in their final Super Four game on 15 September 2023 in Colombo. The form line was more even than the head-to-head, which is the kind of detail that the IGN India fantasy desk flagged as a reason to read the captaincy call on role rather than on table position.

Bangladesh's probable XI and the load on Mustafizur Rahman

The probable Bangladesh XI listed in the IGN India pre-match fantasy brief was: Liton Das (c), Tamim Iqbal, Anamul Haque, Towhid Hridoy, Mahmudullah, Nurul Hasan (wk), Nasum Ahmed, Mahedi Hasan, Mustafizur Rahman, Tanzim Hasan Sakib, Rishad Hossain. The shape was a rest-heavy XI in which six of the first-choice XI from the Asia Cup 2023 had been held back, and the captaincy had moved to Liton Das for the first time in this format. For fantasy users, the brief that the desk built around this side was anchored on three names: Liton Das the captain-batter-keeper, Mahmudullah the middle-overs finisher, and Mustafizur Rahman as the frontline pace option in Taskin Ahmed's absence.

Mustafizur's numbers going in were the headline of the brief. The left-arm seamer had 151 wickets in 91 ODIs at the time, with a best of 6/43, and was the only bowler in the Bangladesh XI with a track record of winning the new ball on Mirpur wickets. With Taskin Ahmed, Hasan Mahmud and Shoriful Islam all held back, Mustafizur was carrying the seam attack by himself in a way that pointed to a high-floor captaincy pick on the back of expected wicket-taking volume. The brief noted that the left-arm angle gave him a favourable matchup against Finn Allen and Will Young, both right-handed batters who had not faced sustained left-arm pace in their recent county and domestic cricket.

The differentials on the Bangladesh side were Tanzim Hasan Sakib and Rishad Hossain. Tanzim, a 20-year-old right-arm fast bowler from the Bangladesh A setup, was making his first appearance in the senior ODI side and the fantasy brief flagged him as a high-variance pick whose points depended on whether the captain gave him the new ball or held him back as a first-change option. Rishad Hossain, a leg-spinning all-rounder, was the most interesting differential of the XI on a Mirpur square that was expected to turn: a leg-spinner on a turning track with the ball gripping off the surface, bowling in the middle overs, was the kind of role that has produced career-best fantasy hauls in similar Bangladesh home conditions, and the IGN India brief listed him as the kind of punt that could turn a good team into a winning one if the surface read held.

New Zealand's probable XI and the World Cup audition under Ferguson

The probable New Zealand XI listed by the IGN India fantasy desk was: Finn Allen, Chad Bowes, Will Young, Henry Nicholls, Tom Blundell (wk), Dean Foxcroft / Cole McConchie, Rachin Ravindra, Adam Milne / Kyle Jamieson, Ish Sodhi, Lockie Ferguson (c), Trent Boult. The side was built around a new-look top order, an all-rounder cluster around the World Cup-bound Rachin Ravindra, and a frontline pace trio of Milne, Ferguson and Boult with the wrist-spin of Ish Sodhi as the middle-overs control option. The fantasy brief noted that the captaincy had been handed to Lockie Ferguson as a deliberate World Cup read: the senior fast bowler was being given command of a side that would otherwise be a 50-over scratch side, and the brief read the selection as a New Zealand effort to give Ferguson captaincy reps ahead of a possible Kane Williamson absence in the early World Cup games.

The two fantasy names on the New Zealand side the brief pushed hardest were Will Young and Rachin Ravindra. Will Young had been picked as the top Dream11 batter of the XI on the back of a tour of England earlier in the 2023 English summer, where he made 98 runs in 4 innings with a highest score of 33. The brief described that run as modest in absolute terms but valuable for fantasy purposes: a top-three batter with a settled role in a top-order that was expected to bat first on a Mirpur surface that was expected to turn, against a Bangladesh attack that was missing Shakib, Mehidy and Taskin. Rachin Ravindra, by contrast, was the differential pick: the all-rounder had 11 wickets and 179 runs across 9 ODIs in the lead-up to the fixture and was named in New Zealand's World Cup squad a few days before the match, which the brief read as a sign that his role at number seven was not going to change.

Ish Sodhi was listed in the IGN India brief as the X-factor pick. The leg-spinner had 55 wickets in 46 ODIs at the time, with a best of 4/58, and 166 runs in 23 innings with the bat, which is the kind of all-round contribution that compounds on a fantasy points system that rewards both wicket-taking and lower-order runs. The brief read the Mirpur surface as a track on which Sodhi's leg-spin would extract turn from ball one, with his wicket-taking role concentrated in the middle overs when Bangladesh's left-handers would be looking to break a chase or build a platform. The desk's note was that Sodhi was the kind of pick that paid off either in a low-scoring bowl-first game (where his wickets compounded) or in a chase (where his lower-order runs pushed his points total above the all-rounder benchmark).

Reading the Dream11 captaincy call through the venue and the role grid

Two reads pushed in opposite directions on the captain slot. The first was Mustafizur Rahman: a left-arm seamer carrying the seam attack alone on a Mirpur track that had rewarded the new ball through the September home series, in a side expected to bowl second under dew. The second was Will Young: a top-three batter in a side that had won the toss and batted first on the three previous Mirpur matches in the 2023 home season, on a track that the brief read as a 260-280 first-innings score. The captaincy decision was, in effect, a question of which side batted first, and which role the captain pick filled.

The recommended combination the IGN India desk laid out for this fixture was: Wicketkeeper - Liton Das (c), Tom Blundell. Batters - Will Young, Towhid Hridoy, Henry Nicholls, Anamul Haque. All-rounders - Mahmudullah, Rachin Ravindra. Bowlers - Mustafizur Rahman, Trent Boult, Ish Sodhi. Vice-captain - Rachin Ravindra. The reasoning rested on three points. First, the captaincy went to Liton Das because he combined the wicketkeeper bonus with the captaincy bonus and batted at a position in the Bangladesh order that would let him accumulate boundaries against a New Zealand attack missing Tim Southee and Matt Henry. Second, the vice-captaincy went to Rachin Ravindra because his role as the seventh batter and fourth bowler gave him points exposure on both sides of the ball. Third, the bowling trio was split between a left-arm seam anchor (Mustafizur), a left-arm seam strike option (Boult) and a wrist-spin point of difference (Sodhi), which the brief read as the right shape for a Mirpur track that was expected to assist both seam up front and spin through the middle overs.

The brief also flagged two practical constraints for fantasy users building around this slate. The first was the toss call: the IGN India brief advised that whichever side batted first had more chances of winning, and the captaincy call had to be locked in after the toss because the difference between a chase and a bowl-first scenario at Mirpur in late September was large enough to swing the slate. The second was the second-string caveat: with Bangladesh resting six first-choice players and New Zealand's World Cup squad already finalised, the brief noted that the probable XIs above were the lists to build around, but that one or two names could still shift at toss once the pitch was read.

What the fixture said about the 2023 World Cup pool in the week the tournament started

Three reads from the BAN v NZ 1st ODI 2023 fantasy brief have aged well as World Cup context, and one has not. The first aged read was on Rachin Ravindra. The brief's note that his all-rounder role at number seven would not change was confirmed inside three weeks when Ravindra scored three centuries at the 2023 World Cup in India and finished the tournament as one of the leading run-scorers. The second aged read was on Will Young: the brief's read of Young as a top-three anchor with modest absolute numbers but a stable role held up, and Young went into the World Cup as Kane Williamson's likely opening partner in the early games. The third aged read was on Mustafizur: the brief's note that Bangladesh would be leaning on him as the only senior seam option pre-World Cup was confirmed when he was named in Bangladesh's World Cup squad as the senior pace lead.

The read that has not aged as well was on Liton Das as the captaincy pick. The brief placed the captaincy on Liton Das on the strength of his wicketkeeper-batter role and his domestic captaincy experience with Comilla Victorians in the BPL, but his ODI form through the World Cup that followed was modest. The brief's caveat that the captaincy call had to be locked in after the toss, and that the second-string XIs in this fixture could shift at the last minute, was the kind of guardrail that fantasy users who read the brief at the time would have honoured. The brief's overall prediction that New Zealand would win the match, on the back of the form line and the New Zealand attack's depth, was the call that most fantasy users took into the contest.

What fantasy users should still take from this fixture in 2026

Three habits from the IGN India pre-match brief for the 21 September 2023 BAN v NZ 1st ODI are worth carrying forward into any fantasy slate in 2026, regardless of format. First, the brief's insistence on building the captaincy around role rather than around form is the rule that has aged best. Liton Das was the form pick on raw numbers, but the role grid pointed to a seam-bowling captain on a Mirpur track, and the desk chose to anchor the vice-captaincy on the all-rounder. Second, the brief's habit of splitting the bowling trio between a left-arm seam anchor, a left-arm seam strike option and a wrist-spin point of difference is the kind of bowling shape that still works on most subcontinental surfaces in 2026. Third, the brief's discipline of locking the captain pick only after the toss, and reading the second-string XIs as the list to build around rather than the list to copy, is the kind of pre-toss routine that the modern Cricuru desk still runs on every Bangladesh home fixture.

The brief's specific player reads have aged unevenly, but the framework is intact. Will Young is no longer the top-three anchor for New Zealand in this format, but the role-grid logic of building around a settled top-three batter against a Bangladesh attack missing its first-choice bowlers still applies. Rachin Ravindra's all-rounder role at number seven has only grown in importance since 2023, and the brief's read of him as a vice-captaincy differential has been validated by his World Cup 2023 and Champions Trophy 2025 form. Mustafizur Rahman remains Bangladesh's senior seam option in 2026, and the brief's note that he is the kind of pick who can carry a fantasy attack on his own in a second-string XI is the read that fantasy users should still honour. The Cricuru Fantasy Tips desk will keep the underlying match notes from this fixture in the Fantasy Tips archive as a reference read for future Bangladesh v New Zealand fixtures at Mirpur.

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