Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan will miss the opening three games of the upcoming five-match T20I series against Zimbabwe after the Bangladesh Cricket Board did not include him in their 15-member squad for the first three games.
BCB also did not keep pacer Mustafizur Rahman, who will return from IPL following his last game against Punjab Kings on 1 May, in their squad for the first three games. BCB earlier said that Shakib would be unavailable for a couple of games as the all-rounder wanted to play in the Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League to prepare for international cricket.
“Shakib is expected to come on 30 May and he desires to play two DPL games. We felt that it can be good as in the T20 format, you don’t get time to get ready in the middle and he can have that time,” said selector Hannan Sarkar on Sunday. “Mustafizur is not in the squad as he has been playing non-stop for a long time. He played in the BPL and Sri Lanka T20 series and later moved to IPL.
“He has been playing for a long time and he needs to recover both mentally and physically. Our chief selector has spoken with him and he wanted recovery time in one portion of the series. So we did not include him in the first three games. We might include him in the second portion meaning the last two T20Is,” he added.
Meanwhile, uncapped opener Tanzid Hasan Tamim was included in the squad that saw the return of opener Parvez Hossain Emon, Tanvir Islam, Afif Hossain, and Mohammad Saifuddin.
Pace bowling all-rounder Saifuddin made a return to the national fold after a gap of 18 months.
Opener Anamul Haque Bijoy, Mohammad Naim, Soumya Sarkar, Aliss Al Islam and Taijul Islam, who were part of the last T20I series against Sri Lanka, however, could not retain their places in the squad.
“Tanzid Tamim is yet to make his debut (in T20Is) but we think he is promising and can play T20 cricket and that is why we included him in the squad,” Hannan said.
“Parvez Emon has played only one T20I so far and apart from that, he played two matches in a different tournament (in the Asian Games) and we want to see him,” he said.
“Soumya is still injured and could not become fully fit. So we could not keep him in the opening three-match squad. We will later decide on him after talking with the medical team.
“We feel Saifuddin is an all-rounder and we are planning to play him in the Zimbabwe series. We hope he will execute his role in the middle,” he concluded.
Bangladesh squad: Najmul Hossain Shanto (capt), Liton Das, Tanzid Hasan Tamim, Tawhid Hridoy, Mahmudullah, Jaker Ali Anik, Mahedi Hasan, Rishad Hossain, Taskin Ahmed, Shoriful Islam, Tanzim Hasan Sakib, Parvez Hossain Emon, Tanvir Islam, Afif Hossain, Mohammad Saifuddin.
