The 2018 Nidahas Trophy was a T20 cricket tournament that was held in Sri Lanka in March 2018. It was a tri-nation series between Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka. Each team played each other twice, with two teams progressing to the final. The tournament was played to celebrate Sri Lanka's 70th year of independence; the title derives from the Sinhalese නිදහස් nidahas, meaning "freedom." Sri Lanka Cricket confirmed that the matches would be played as Twenty20 International fixtures. The fixtures and venue were announced in November 2017, with all the matches played at the R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. This was the first occasion that Discovery Networks Asia Pacific channel DSport acquired media rights to broadcast live cricket matches involving the Indian cricket team.

The Bangladesh men's national cricket team, popularly known as The Tigers, is administered by the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB). It is a Full Member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) with Test, One-Day International (ODI) and Twenty20 International (T20I) status. It became an associate member of the ICC in 1977, and competed in six ICC Trophies but performed inconsistently until 1997, which marked the year of their first major victory, winning the 1997 ICC Trophy held in Malaysia. This set the way of becoming a Test-playing nation, a journey which ended with success in 2000. It played its first Test match in November 2000 against India with a 9 wicket loss in Dhaka, becoming the 10th Test-playing nation.