Shahriar finds his place in Test side
Mashrafe Bin Mortaza is yet to be match fit as the national selectors on Monday announced a 14-member squad for the two-Test series against India keeping Shakib Al Hasan as captain and wicketkeeper Mushfiqur Rahim as his deputy.
"Mashrafe himself is not ready to play the Test matches, but we are hopeful that he will be a part of the team on the New Zealand tour because he is improving well," said chief selector Rafiqul Alam yesterday.
The Rafiqul Alam-led selection panel made few changes on the team from the one that toured West Indies last July as wicketkeeper Sahagir Hossain and left-handed batsman Mehrab Hossain have been left out.
On the other hand, left-arm seamer Syed Rasel, left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak, Naeem Islam and Aftab Ahmed failed to make it to the Test side from the one-day team which played the ongoing Idea Cup tri-nation tournament.
The first Test starts at Chittagong from January 17 while the second match begins at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur from January 24.
The Test team includes four openers in Tamim Iqbal, Imrul Kayes, Shahriar Nafees and Zunaed Siddiqui, who was dropped from the one-day side due to poor form.
"Actually Zunaed has been considered as number three batsman while Shahriar was picked as a back up, so we can't say there are too many openers in the team. What we believe is that Zunaed is a very good player for the longer-version and he did well in the last Test series," explained Rafiqul.
"Mehrab is not in good form while Naeem and Rasel are out of Test cricket for a long time and we didn't feel that the time has come for Aftab to play the longer-version cricket," he added.
SQUAD
Shakib Al Hasan (captain), Mushfiqur Rahim (vice-captain), Tamim Iqbal, Imrul Kayes, Zunaed Siddiqui, Mohammad Ashraful, Rokibul Hasan, Mahmudullah, Shahriar Nafees, Shahadat Hossain, Rubel Hossain, Enamul Haque, Mahbubul Alam and Shafiul Islam.
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