The world cricket fraternity have a few couple of hours from now to witness the curtain raiser of the ICC Champions Trophy to hosting by England for the third time. 

The 8^th edition curtain will raise with a Group A match where the Asian giant-killer Bangladesh will face the giant England on a batting-friendly pitch of the Kennington Oval in London.

The opening match will start at 3:30pm on Thursday (Bangladesh time).

On the eve of the curtain raiser of the second most popular mega cricket event, leading internet search engine ‘Google’ has changed its Doodle (the logo on the Google) on home page to share the sprite with cricket fans.

Including the final and the two semi-finals, a total of 15 matches will be held at three venues—Kennington Oval in London, Edgbaston in Birmingham and Sophia Gardens in Cardiff.

The tournament opening venue will also host the eight-nation meet final on June 18.

The record clearly shows that the English team is favourite one as they secured 15 victories over Bangladesh against four losses in their last 19 ODI meetings, but the Tigers must look forward to make an immediate impact against its favourite opponent in the recent history of ICC’s 50-over mega events.

Bangladesh emerged victorious in both its recent outings against England in the ICC Cricket World Cup, handing the English side a two-run defeat in the 2011 edition and knocking them out by a 15-run win from the group stage of the 2015 event to qualify for the knockouts for the first time.

The recent mega event history can be back as Mashrafe Bin Mortaza has had a solid and balanced team to bank it on by his experienced and youthful enthusiasm associates having the undisputed skills.

Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mahmudullah Riyad and Mashrafe Bin Mortaza bring a decade of experience along with the young Soumya Sarkar, Mustafizur Rahman, Mehedi Hasan, Mosaddek Hossain and Taskin Ahmed.

To counter, England have an out-and-out aggressive batting line-up that can sometimes be as deep as to number 11. Eoin Morgan and Joe Root are the experienced hands in a team that has topped the 400-run mark twice in the last two years; 300-plus totals have become England’s ODI staple.

England have Ben Stokes who is rapidly developing into a one of the best all-rounder in the world, an ode to the England approach of picking genuine all-rounders over bits-and-pieces cricketers. Uncertainty persists as to the condition of Ben Stokes’ knee but he - along with Chris Woakes, Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid - will be the key to England’s chances of success in the Champions Trophy.

England are favourites among many experts ahead of the competition, which includes Bangladesh captain Mashrafe and Indian captain Virat Kohli. Every team is wary of a home team that has a squad full of blockbuster cricketers, but taking Bangladesh lightly could be proved very costly.

Bangladesh will be competing in the tournament for the first time since 2006, after failing to qualify for the previous two editions in 2009 and 2013 because of its low ranking.

Bangladesh’s first experience of the event came in the second edition, in Nairobi in 2000, but the team returned home empty-handed in terms of results. The story remained the same in the 2002 and 2004 editions before they recorded first victory, against Zimbabwe in 2006. That game also remains its last Champions Trophy fixture till date.

The Tigers have played a total of eight matches in the ICC Champions Trophy and secured only victory in 2006 edition over Zimbabwe.

Bangladesh have never gone past the group stages in the tournament, but when the Asian giant-killer will step foot at the Kennington Oval, they must look forward to make an immediate impact against its favourite opponent in the recent history of ICC’s 50-over mega events.

In the remaining matches, Bangladesh will face Australia and New Zealand on June 5 and 9 respectively.

England hosted the event earlier in 2004 and 2013 and in both editions they finished runners-up losing to West Indies and India by two wickets and by five runs respectively.

India and Australia are the sides to have won the tournament twice. Meanwhile, West Indies, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and South Africa each have annexed the trophy once. India and Sri Lanka are the only teams to have shared the trophy.

Bangladesh best XI (probable): Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Sabbir Rahman, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mahmudullah Riyad, Shakib Al Hasan, Mosaddek Hossain, Mehedi Hasan Miraz, Mashrafe Bin Mortaza (captain), Rubel Hossain and Mustafizur Rahman.

England best XI (probable): Jason Roy, Alex Hales, Joe Root, Eoin Morgan (captain), Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, Moeen Ali, Adil Rashid, Chris Woakes, Liam Plunkett and Mark Wood.