BCB announce 32-member pool ahead of home season

Bangladesh's primary squad will begin their preparation from December 27 © Getty

The Bangladesh Cricket Board on Saturday (December 23) announced a 32-member pool for the upcoming tri-series, involving Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka, followed by a Test series against Sri Lanka. The preparations are set to begin from December 27.

It will be the beginning of a new era as Bangladesh will be without Chandika Hathurusingha, who resigned in October 15 to join Sri Lanka as their head coach.

The national selectors have looked closely at the performances of local players in the recently-concluded Bangladesh Premier League and the National Cricket League. As a result of this, a few young faces have come in contention for national selection, while a few experienced players have also made a strong case for an international return.

Bangladesh have put up an improved show at home in recent times, especially in limited-overs, but their performances abroad still leaves a lot of room for improvement.

Chief selector Minhajul Abedin told Cricbuzz that they are aware of the expectations and feels confident that the players have the potential to do well.

"We decided to include all possible options available to us for the upcoming home series," Minhajul said about the shortlisted player pool.

"It will be challenging for us as we have to meet up the expectations of the home crowd while the duration will also have some kind of impact considering they have played non-stop cricket for quite some time in the recent past," he said.

"So we need to keep all the alternatives ready, not only so that they can fill the gap if required but also because they can put some pressure on the current player as well."

According to Minhajul, the selectors are quite impressed with the performance of young off-spinner Mehedi Hasan, who had been a revelation on his debut in BPL for Comilla Victorians, while it was the same with seasoned left-arm spinner Nazmul Islam Apu, who was ignored for a long time by the national selectors despite good performances in domestic cricket.

"It is true we could not include some players who were performing regularly in the domestic circuit (in the past) as there was hardly any place for them against the proven performers. But we decided to come out of this theory," said Minhajul.

"The performance of Anamul in NCL surely made us think while it is the same with some other names who had been performing consistently. And now we have to make sure to test their ability by playing them against some international teams.

"We are not ready to make too many changes but at the same time we are not prepared to create an atmosphere that can make some of our cricketers take everything for granted.

Bangladesh is yet to announce a head coach for the national side, and either of Khaled Mahmud or Richard Halsall will act as the interim head.

32-member pool: Tamim Iqbal, Imrul Kayes, Liton Das, Anamul Haque, Nazmul Islam Apu, Mominul Haque, Sadman Islam, Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mahmudullah, Nasir Hossain, Mosaddek Hossain, Sabbir Rahman, Mohammad Mithun, Soumya Sarkar, Mashrafe Mortaza, Mustafizur Rahman, Taskin Ahmed, Shafiul Islam, Abu Haidar, Abu Jahed, Subashis Roy, Rubel Hossain, Abul Hasan, Kamrul Islam, Taijul Islam, Mehidy Hasan, Nazmul Islam Shanto, Sunzamul Islam, Ariful Haque, Mehedi Hasan, Mohammad Saifuddin