Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe open a round-robin ODI tri-series in the UAE on October 17, with each side playing the other once before the top two meet in the final on October 23. The tournament follows directly on from Afghanistan and Bangladesh's drawn one-off Test in Abu Dhabi, which finished on October 14, and opens with Bangladesh facing Zimbabwe on the 17th.
Bangladesh meet Zimbabwe on October 17, Afghanistan play Zimbabwe on October 19, and Afghanistan face Bangladesh on October 21, before the top two sides in the standings contest the final on October 23. Reports on the venues have varied between Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium and Sharjah Cricket Stadium, so fans should check official confirmation closer to each fixture.
Rahmat Shah leads Afghanistan's ODI squad, having taken over the Test and ODI captaincy from Hashmatullah Shahidi in July. Litton Das captains Bangladesh, with Tawhid Hridoy as his deputy, in a squad that also includes Najmul Hossain Shanto and Mehidy Hasan Miraz; quick Nahid Rana is absent as he continues to recover from a side strain. Zimbabwe are led by Sikandar Raza in both white-ball formats while regular option Richard Ngarava recovers from a back injury.
Afghanistan's squad includes Rashid Khan, who was rested from the Abu Dhabi Test as a workload-management call but returns for the ODI leg, alongside top-order names Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Ibrahim Zadran and Hashmatullah Shahidi. Azmatullah Omarzai and Fazal Haq Farooqi round out an attack that will lean on Rashid's control through the middle overs across a tournament format that rewards exactly that kind of containment.
None of these three sides are frequent ODI opponents of one another, which makes the round-robin format a useful form marker heading into a packed Afghanistan home season — the hosts go on to play three T20Is and a two-Test series against Zimbabwe into mid-November. For Bangladesh, it is a chance to build momentum after a Test they dominated for four days before letting slip on the final afternoon; for Zimbabwe, already touring without several first-choice T20I players, a strong showing against two higher-ranked sides would be a useful marker of where their 50-over game stands.
Live scores from the UAE are available on SportGod's live matches page, with data-backed match forecasts on SportGod's predictions page and more tournament coverage on the SportGod blog.
Squad, captaincy and schedule details in this article are verified against same-day and freshly re-checked reporting as of October 16, 2026; the tri-series venues were not fully confirmed by official sources at the time of writing.
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