Bangladesh announce squad for Asia Cup T20

Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) today announced the Bangladesh squad for the upcoming Asia Cup T20 that is seen as a perfect rehearsal for the World T20 2016. The team has one major change as the selectors brought in Imrul Kayes in place of Tamim Iqbal, who stated his unavailability due to the birth of his first child and will be on paternal leave.

Imrul has earned his comeback on the back of some impressive performances for his Bangladesh Premier League side Comilla Victorians. He scored 312 runs in the 12 matches of the tournament which made him the second highest run-getter. He had maintained a strike rate of 114.70.

The left-hander was a part of the Bangladesh squad that played Zimbabwe in a 4-match T20I series last month after he made a comeback to the T20I squad against Zimbabwe in November 2015 being included for the first time in almost four years. He was included in the squad only for the last two matches in which he scored 1 and 18. Zimbabwe beat Bangladesh in both the matches and with that were able to level the series 2-2.

The Asia Cup that will for the first time be played in the T20 format keeping in mind the World T20 starts from February 19. In the first round Afghanistan, UAE, Hong Kong and Oman will play qualification matches. The qualifying team will join the four team’s hosts Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka in the main draw which starts February 24.

The hosts will be playing their first game of the Asia Cup 2016 on February 24 against India.

Bangladesh squad for Asia Cup T20: 

Mashrafe Mortaza (capt), Shakib Al Hasan, Imrul Kayes, Mohammad Mithun, Mahmudullah, Mushfiqur Rahim, Soumya Sarkar, Sabbir Rahman, Nasir Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman, Al-Amin Hossain, Taskin Ahmed, Arafat Sunny, Abu Hider, Nurul Hasan.