India and South Africa will never forget the stunning defeats at the hands of the Test minnows in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007. Young captain Mohammad Ashraful remains the star batsman and his wide variety of stroke play suits the shortest version of the game. Mohammad Nazimuddin is an exciting batsman while Mashrafe Mortaza is the team's bowling kingpin.

The side produced one of the shocks of the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 in beating the West Indies in the group stage by six wickets. The heroes that day were Aftab Ahmed and the skipper Ashraful who both produced half-centuries and Shakib Al Hasan who claimed four wickets.

They failed to continue this form into subsequent matches, losing by seven wickets to South Africa in their second group game and getting thumped by Australia and Sri Lanka in the Super Eights.

The match against Australia was most memorable for Brett Lee's impressive bowling which was rewarded with the first ever hat-trick in T20 Internationals. Lee's impressive display helped restrict Bangladesh to only 123 which the Australians knocked off with seven overs to spare.

Sri Lanka further increased Bangladesh's miseries with a win by 64 runs which put Bangladesh out of contention and although they also lost their final match against Pakistan they went down fighting with Zunaed Siddique firing an impressive 71 in 49 balls.

Bangladesh will go into the 2009 event as outsiders but always have the potential to spring a surprise, particularly in Twenty20 cricket.

T20 Bangladesh Team
Mohammad Ashraful (captain)
Mashrafe Mortaza (vice-captain)
Tamim Iqbal
Junaid Siddique
Raqibul Hasan
Shakib Al Hasan
Mushfiqur Rahim
Naeem Islam
Abdur Razzak
Shahadat Hossain
Syed Rasel
Mohammad Mahmudullah
Rubel Hossain
Shamsur Rahman
Mohammad Mithun