Hider, Hom, Nurul named in T20 squad

Soumya Sarkar is back in Bangladesh’s T20 squad after a side strain forced him to miss their series against Zimbabwe in November © AFP

Bangladesh have named the uncapped trio of Shuvagata Hom, Abu Hider and Nurul Hasan in their 14-man squad for the first two T20s against Zimbabwe, to be played on January 15 and 17. Shakib Al Hasan and Soumya Sarkar also return to the fold after missing the T20 series against Zimbabwe in November.

Liton Das, Nasir Hossain, Jubair Hossain, Anamul Haque and Kamrul Islam Rabbi, who were part of the previous T20 squad, have been left out.

Among the three newcomers, left-arm paceman Hider performed the best in the BPL, with 21 wickets for eventual champions Comilla Victorians. Shuvagata also did well, playing for the same team, while wicketkeeper-batsman Nurul, who didn’t have a great BPL, has been in the selectors’ eye for a while due to his performances in domestic cricket and for Bangladesh A.

Shakib, who is in the USA, having taken paternity leave during the Zimbabwe T20s in November, will return to Bangladesh on January 9 to join the training camp, while Soumya missed out because of a side strain.

Among the players dropped, the legspinner Jubair was not picked by any of the BPL teams and was also not in the 27-man preliminary training squad that the national selectors had called up for the upcoming T20 tournaments. He had figures of 2 for 20 in his only T20 against Zimbabwe.

Liton, Nasir and Anamul went through form slumps against Zimbabwe and also during the BPL while Rabbi can consider himself slightly unfortunate since he hadn’t played any matches against Zimbabwe despite being in the ODI and T20 squads.

Bangladesh squad for the first two T20s against Zimbabwe: Mashrafe Mortaza (capt), Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal, Imrul Kayes, Soumya Sarkar, Sabbir Rahman, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mahmudullah, Arafat Sunny, Nurul Hasan, Shuvagata Hom, Mustafizur Rahman, Abu Hider, Al-Amin Hossain

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Source: ESPN Crickinfo