Bangladesh captain Mashrafe eyes attacking cricket against Afghanistan

Bangladesh will keep intact their attacking approach when they take on Afghanistan at home.

Mashrafe Bin Mortaza and his men won their last five ODI series with an aggressive brand of cricket that turned out to be their winning recipe.

They sealed series wins over India, Pakistan and South Africa last year, before and after two clean sweeps against Zimbabwe.

Mashrafe wants the Tigers to produce the same kind of results against Afghanistan with attacking cricket.

"We definitely want to play aggressive cricket. We will look forward to begin (the season) the same way we finished the last," the skipper said on Saturday.

However, a team sometime needs to go on their defence when the situation demands, but Mashrafe wants to stay away from those tactics in this series.

"We are keen to start off with our best performance, but that does not mean we should turn defensive."

The first of three-match series will begin at 2:30pm local time on Sunday. Mirpur's Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium will host all three matches.

Mashrafe, who turns 33 this October, is very confident of his team's capabilities with the ball.

Paying due respect to the Afghans' bowling line-up, he said, "Afghanistan's bowling attack is definitely very good…but we believe, we have the best bowling line-up in the world at the moment. All of us believe this."

He highlighted self-confidence as their mantra.

"What we ourselves believe matters more when preparing for an international game. We will get on the field with that faith."

Young Bangladeshi speedstar Taskin Ahmed and southpaw spinner Arafat Sunny were cleared to bowling in international matches by the ICC on Friday following assessments in Brisbane, Australia, earlier this month.

Mashrafe is delighted to get Taskin - one of his frontline bowlers - back in the team.

"Obviously it is a great news for our cricket. He returned after proving himself - we really liked that," Mashrafe said.

Coach Chandika Hathurusingha believes Taskin would be crucial for the success of any team in the world.

"Definitely, the quality of Taskin’s skill will benefit any team in world cricket. He is one of our best bowlers, so he is coming and we are very relieved to have this ban off from him," the Sri Lankan coach said.