Mashrafe to lead BCB XI

The Bangladesh selectors sprung a surprise yesterday when they announced quite a strong BCB-XI squad for the practice match against the Zimbabweans in Fatullah on Thursday.

The 14-member side includes five players from the main squad, including ODI and T20I captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza who will be leading this side as well.

Apart from Mashrafe, the selectors also included Mushfiqur Rahim, Sabbir Rahman, Liton Das and Jubair Hossain in the side. The reasoning behind the inclusion of each of these players seems to be different. Mashrafe, who has just recovered from dengue, has been working hard to regain his fitness levels.

He only recently began to bowl in the nets. In addition, he is yet to attend all the training sessions on a regular basis. On Monday for instance, the skipper took breaks during a training session which required the players to take part in a practice match with simulated conditions.

According to chief selector Faruque Ahmed, Mashrafe has been included in order to be given more game-time. Although at the moment it seems as though the management is looking to test his fitness levels.

Mushfiqur, who has had a relatively poor run ever since the Pakistan series, reportedly expressed his desire to take part in the game. The diminutive batsman will hope he can regain form and smash those slog-hits in style again.

Liton and Sabbir may be regulars in the playing eleven now, but they still have a lot to prove and the management probably wants them to get a head-start ahead of the main series.

Leg-spinner Jubair, on the other hand, will want to get his hopes high of making the playing eleven after a rather dull recent phase. He is the only player from the national side who wasn't picked during the Bangladesh Premier League draft and he will hope to change that statistic through a good performance in this series.

He has been bowling well in training, frequently deceiving batters with his flighted deliveries and the management now hopes he can replicate that on the field.

Apart from the national players, a number of cricketers who have done well in the National Cricket Leauge have also been selected.

SQUAD
Imrul Kayes, Anamul Haque, Liton Das, Shahriar Nafees, Mushfiqur Rahim, Sabbir Rahman, Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, Mehedi Maruf, Jubair Hossain, Sanjamul Islam, Delwar Hossain, Shafiul Islam, Towhidul Islam Rassel