The national selectors brought another pacer to the senior fold as Ariful Hoque was drafted into the 25-member preliminary squad for the Asia Cup and ICC World Twenty20. With two major T20 events on the cards, Bangladesh's team think-tank, particularly coach Chandika Hathurusingha, have been going through a massive experiment which saw all-rounder Mukhtar Ali, who was not even selected for the 27-member preliminary squad announced on December 30 last year, to play the third T20I against Zimbabwe in Khulna.

Mukhtar was included in the list this time while Saqlain Sajib, Jahurul Islam, Anamul Haque and Shohag Gazi missed the long-list. Pacer Rubel Hossain was also not included, as the right-arm paceman was yet to recover from his calf-muscle injury.

With 23-year old right-arm paceman Ariful, there are now eleven pace bowlers in the list, so the question was: why so many pacers?

"Actually we are searching for a bowling all-rounder who can hit hard late in the game. Basically we designed the preliminary squad focusing on the practice matches and we want to see how this young guy responds there. We saw Mukhtar in one match and we also want to see more options and that's the reason we included him," selector Habibul Bashar explained as the reason.

"Ariful has decent performances in different levels, so let see how he responds," he added.

Regarding Rubel's chances, Bashar said: "Rubel will be able to start bowling in the nets after January 30, so he is unlikely to be considered as there is a deadline for submitting the team for the ICC World Twenty20."

"Anamul and Jahurul have been injured while Saqlain has very little chance of breaking into T20 cricket. On the other hand we are not so impressed with Shohag Gazi," he informed.

The players will report for camp in Khulna on January 23. After nine days of training in Khulna, they will travel to Chittagong on February 7 where the camp will continue till February 18.

The Asia Cup will be held in Bangladesh from February 24 to March 6 while the ICC World Twenty20 will take place in India from March 9 to April 3.

PRELIMINARY SQUAD
Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarker, Imrul Kayes, Liton Das, Mosaddek Hossain, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mohammad Mithun, Qazi Nurul Hasan,  Shakib Al Hasan, Mahmudullah Riyad, Nasir Hossain, Sabbir Rahaman, Shuvagata Hom, Ariful Hoque, Arafat Sunny, Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, Mustafizur Rahman, Abu Haider, Al-Amin Hossain, Shafiul Islam, Mohammad Shahid, Abul Hasan, Taskin Ahmed, Kamrul Islam, Mukhtar Ali.