The BCB has announced a one-day competition between three teams – to be led by Tamim Iqbal, Mahmudullah and Najmul Hossain Shanto – between October 11 and 23 to build up towards the return of domestic cricket in Bangladesh. The three teams will play each other twice in the league stage, with the top-two teams meeting in the final. All players, support staffers, match officials and others connected to the matches, which will be day-nighters, are going to be placed in a bio-secure bubble during the course of the tournament.
Most members of the 15-man squads are players who were part of the two-leg training camp held since September 20 in preparation for the now-aborted Sri Lanka tour. To that group, the selectors have added some members of 2020 Under-19 World Cup-winning squad, including captain Akbar Ali, as well as players from the BCB’s high-performance programme; one specialist legspinner has been added to each team too. The senior team management has also mandated that all 45 players must be selected for at least two matches.
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Once the tour of Sri Lanka was postponed, the BCB had announced that the players would continue to train at their camp in Dhaka, during which the players would play two intra-squad two-day games and one three-day game. The two-dayers are done, and the three-day contest now stands cancelled.
Mashrafe Mortaza, who resigned from ODI captaincy in March this year, was not included in any of the squads. “Mashrafe will be playing the T20 tournament but not this one-day tournament,” BCB president Nazmul Hassan said. “It is not that he doesn’t want to play. [But] he has to be quarantined [after having been treated for Covid-19] and will need time to regain fitness.”
The T20 tournament Hassan referred to is likely to be a five-team affair, to be held in mid-November. The BCB is yet to decide whether it will sponsor the event on its own or bring corporate houses to own the teams.
“We have to decide if it will be a corporate league or a BCB-sponsored event,” Hassan said. “We also want to see if we can allow foreign players. It is likely to be a five-team event, which will involve 75 local players. All we need is to ensure who will manage the teams and how they will manage social distancing in this pandemic. Whether they will send the players home after the games, we just want to ensure these things first.”
Abu Jayed, who had tested positive for Covid-19 on September 23 – the same day Saif Hassan, who had earlier tested positive too, returned a negative test – has since tested negative, and both players were included in the squads.
Squads for the one-day tri-series
Mahmudullah XI: Mahmudullah (capt), Mohammad Naim, Liton Das (wk), Mominul Haque, Mahmudul Hasan, Nurul Hasan (wk), Sabbir Rahman, Imrul Kayes, Hasan Mahmud, Ebadat Hossain, Rubel Hossain, Mrittunjoy Chowdhury, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Rakibul Hasan, Aminul Islam Biplob.
Najmul XI: Najmul Hossain Shanto (capt), Soumya Sarkar, Saif Hassan, Afif Hossain, Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), Towhid Hridoy, Irfan Sukkur (wk), Parvez Hossain, Taskin Ahmed, Al-Amin Hossain, Abu Jayed, Mukidul Islam, Nayeem Hasan, Nasum Ahmed, Rishad Hossain.
Tamim XI: Tamim Iqbal (capt), Tanzid Hasan, Mosaddek Hossain, Mohammad Mithun (wk), Shahadat Hossain, Yasir Ali, Akbar Ali (wk), Anamul Haque (wk), Mohammad Saifuddin, Mustafizur Rahman, Khaled Ahmed, Shoriful Islam, Mahedi Hasan, Taijul Islam, Minhajul Abedin Afridi.