The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) announced its squad for the Asia
Cup yesterday which is due to begin on March 24 in Dhaka. There has only
been one change made from the ICC World Twenty20 squad announced
earlier this month.
Opener Tamim Iqbal, whose wife is expected to give birth to the
couple's first child during that period, had asked for and was granted
leave and as a result will not be able to take part in the Asia Cup,
which is being held in the Twenty20 format for the first time.
He has been replaced by left-handed opener Imrul Kayes. Imrul had a
fantastic 2015, and excelled in T20 cricket. Imrul made valuable
contributions whenever he got chances as a back-up opener since the last
50-over World Cup in early 2015. In Test cricket he has averaged 54 in
2015 with a high score of 150 and he scored 76 and 73 against Zimbabwe
in the two ODIs he played since the World Cup. He was by far the most
exciting Bangladeshi batsman in the Bangladesh Premier League, where
with 300 runs he was the second highest run-scorer. Imrul is also in the
standby list in the World T20 squad.
SQUAD
Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, Imrul Kayes, Soumya Sarkar, Mohamad Mithun,
Mahmuduallah Riyad, Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim, Nurul Hasan,
Sabbir Rahaman, Nasir Hossain, Arafat Sunny, Mustafizur Rahman, Al-Amin
Hossain, Taskin Ahmed, Abu Hider