All the speculations surrounding Mashrafe Mortaza's international career were laid to rest as Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) named him in the squad for the upcoming tour of Sri Lanka. The allrounder will stay on as captain, reports Cricbuzz.
BCB also granted rest to star all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan, who finished the 2019 World Cup with astonishing numbers (606 runs and 11 wickets). Liton Das has also been granted leave.
Fast bowler Abu Jayed, who was picked for the World Cup but didn't get a game, was not picked for this tour.
"We didn't make big chances from the World Cup squad here. As we don't have Shakib and Liton, we include two players in their places and dropped one player, " Chief selector Minhajul Abedin said.
In Shakib's absence, Bangladesh have picked Taijul Islam to fill the left-arm spinner's void.
"We need a left-arm spinner so Taijul is going with the team. He is now playing in India. Anamul Haque is going there as a replacement of Liton.
"We have five one-day matches against Afghanistan A at home and our BCB XI is also participating in a four-day tournament in India. To cope up everything, we made a 14-member squad. In Sri Lanka, we have just three ODIs," Abedin said.
"Anamul has been performing consistently in domestic matches. He is doing well in both longer version and ODI format. We included him keeping all these in our mind. He is playing for A team and the High Performance head coach gave us positive feedback about him. Because of that we included him in the squad."
Bangladesh's tour, comprising three ODIs, will be played on July 26, July 28 and July 31 at the R Premadasa stadium in Colombo.