Sports Desk

A Bangladesh Cricket Board official said that they have not included left-arm Taijul Islam in the 17-member preparation camp for the upcoming five-match T20 series against Zimbabwe as they want to protect him for Test cricket.

Taijul was part of the Bangladesh T20 squad that played against Sri Lanka but failed to make a cut in the preparation camp that began in Chattogram on Friday.

The exclusion raised quite a few eyebrows as he did not feature in any match of the three-match T20 series against islanders after being picked on the basis of an impressive showdown in the last edition of Bangladesh Premier League, the country’s lone franchise-based T20 tournament.

“Look, Taijul was injured during the Test series against Sri Lanka and recovered recently and played a game in DPL. But we don’t want to risk him by including him in T20Is as we don’t have his alternative in Test cricket. But in T20, we can go for other options like Tanvir,” a member of the national team management told The Daily Sun recently.

The member added that they have also not included Mehidy Hasan Miraz in the preparation camp for the same reason as they feel T20 bowling has an impact on the off-spinner’s Test bowling as they feel they need him more in that format considering they have an alternate off-spin option - Mahedi Hasan -in the T20Is.

“Look, we have not included Mehidy Hasan Miraz as we feel that his bowling is important for us in Tests. I think Mehidy does not bowl the way in the Test that we know after coming from T20s. So we are not very keen to use him in the shortest format,” said the official.

Meanwhile, the official said that they have included opener Parvez Hossain Emon as they want Chandika Hathurusingha to have a look at him.

He added that though they are not considering Anamul Haque in the shortest format, all is not gone for Mohammad Naim. Both Naim and Anamul were also part of the T20 squad against Sri Lanka but did not feature in the series along with uncapped Aliss al Islam, who was ruled out due to an injury after being named for the squad.

“We want our head coach (Hathurusingha) to see what Emon (Parvez) can offer and whether he can earn his trust because he really batted aggressively in the DPL and seemed to have all the elements to be successful in the shortest format,” said another member of the team management on request of anonymity.

“We already have four openers with Liton (Das), Tanzid Hasan Tamim, Soumya Sarkar and Emon. From them, three openers are expected to be part of the squad while one will remain as back-up,” he said, adding that members of the coaching panel rate Tanzid highly for his cricketing skill though he is yet to debut in T20Is.

“We are not considering Anamul in the shortest format at the moment and it is not a fact that Naim is out of contention. But we feel we need to see Parvez. We have done visa (USA) for Naim and if he is required, surely he can come into play and he also has experience. But Parvez is raw and so we need to see him,” he said.