Bangladesh Cricket Board today announced a 15-man squad for the one-off Test series against Afghanistan excluding Mustafizur Rahman, as the selectors wanted to rest the pacer.
‘We got to know that Mustafiz suffered an injury in the conditioning camp yesterday [Thursday]...as this is just one Test match we didn’t take any risks,’ said selector Minhajul Abedin.
‘We have Test matches coming in India. In white ball cricket, we have a triangular Twenty20 series. That’s why we didn’t want to take any risks.’
Skipper Sakib al Hasan returned to the Test side while pacer Taskin Ahmed and all-rounder Mosaddek made a comeback.
Other than Mustafiz, opener Tamim Iqbal, who had previously asked for a rest in the Afghan series, and injured pacer Khalid Ahmed were also excluded from the squad.
Minhajul said they could not consider opener Imrul Kayes for Tamim as he was not in the camp due to the illness of his son. Afghanistan arrive on Friday for their maiden Test against Bangladesh in Chittogram from September 5.
They will also play a tri-nation Twenty20 International tournament during the tour from September 13 to 24.Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are the other two teams of the tournament.
Squad for Afghanistan Test:Shadman Islam, Mominul Haque, Soumya Sarkar, Sakib al Hasan (C), Mahmudullah, Mohammad Mithun, Mushfiqur Rahim, Liton Das, Taijul Islam, Mosaddek Hossain, Nayeem Hasan, Mehedi Hasan, Taskin Ahmed, Ebadat Hossain and Abu Jayed
