Mashrafe Mortaza continues as captain for Sri Lanka tour, Shakib Al Hasan rested
Mashrafe Mortaza will continue to play for the Bangladesh Cricket team as his inclusion in the squad for their upcoming tour to Sri Lanka ended the retirement rumours. Meanwhile, key players Shakib Al Hasan and Liton Das were rested for the same as the board named the 14 man squad on Tuesday.
The Bangladesh Cricket Board retained most of the players that participated in the recently concluded World Cup for their tour to Sri Lanka that would consist of only three ODIs. They will be played on July 26, 28 and 31 at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, after a practice match on July 23 is scheduled to take place at the same venue.
Mashrafe Mortaza was named as captain, putting to bed rumours that stated he will retire after he had a dismal World Cup campaign, picking up only one wicket in nine matches. Shakib Al Hasan and Liton Das had previously asked for breaks from the national team post the World Cup and they have been granted the same, while pacer Abu Jayed has been dropped after he got no game time in England even though he was a part of the squad.
"We didn't make big chances from the World Cup squad here. As we don't have Shakib and Liton, we include two players in their places and dropped one player," Chief selector Minhajul Abedin said, reported Cricbuzz.
Shakib Al Hasan had a record breaking campaign scoring 606 runs and picking 11 wickets. With him unavailable, left-arm spinner Taijul Islam has been given a chance in the team. On the other hand, Anamul Haque has been picked in place of Liton Das.
“We have five one-day matches against Afghanistan A at home and our BCB XI is also participating in a four-day tournament in India. To cope up everything, we made a 14-member squad. In Sri Lanka, we have just three ODIs," Abedin said.
"Anamul has been performing consistently in domestic matches. He is doing well in both longer version and ODI format. We included him keeping all these in our mind. He is playing for A team and the High Performance head coach gave us positive feedback about him. Because of that we included him in the squad," he added.
Despite multiple reports stated that senior players such as Mohammad Saifuddin, Mahmudullah, Mushfiqur Rahim and Mortaza himself were still recovering from injuries, all of them have been included in the 14 member squad. The team is scheduled to depart for the island nation on the 20th of July.
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