Rhodes cites reason for Fizz’s exclusion

The exclusion of Mustafizur Rahman from the first Test raised a few eyebrows among the Bangladesh cricket team fans. While the left-armer's ODI exploits did not go unnoticed last year, his performances in the longest format of the game has not been very special. There was reason to believe that Fizz was dropped because of poor performances in Tests. Coach Steve Rhodes informed today that the left-armer was not included due to other reasons.

He called it 'horses for courses' when explaining Fizz's absence.

"The thing about Fizz is that it's a real struggle for him to put back-to-back Test matches together. I think to get the best out of him mentally, and to keep him fresh is to spell the Test matches he plays," he said.

"So you can gather from that that there is every chance he will come back to the fold in the next Test match," Rhodes added.

Bangladesh went in with an inexperienced pace lineup of Abu Jayed, Ebadot Hossain and Khaled Hossain for the first Test. Fizz, according to Rhodes will be used so much at Wellington, that Tigers just had to rest him.

"One of the reasons we actually want him to play at Wellington was because there is going to be a blowing gale there. He is our best bowler into the wind so you will find that there is a lot of work for the Fizz at Wellington. For that reason we needed to assure he was fresh, because he has a big workload at Wellington. Everything is horses for courses so that was the reason," he stated.

When it was pointed out to Rhodes that fast bowling coach Courtney Walsh used to play a lot of Tests and bowl a lot, he found the comparison to be unfair.

"That's so unfair. Courtney Walsh is a legend of a bowler. Courtney was the type who needed to bowl a lot to gain his rhythm and his pace and accuracy. If he had a break, he struggled a lot, like Glenn McGrath.

"You get certain bowlers like that but also some who you need to keep fresh and Mustafizur is one of them," Rhodes concluded.