Agency :
Taskin Ahmed’s participation in Bangladesh’s forthcoming Test series against the West Indies was in a question mark, with that a pace dilemma arose on Thursday as Shoriful Islam was declared out of the rest of the series against the ongoing Sri Lanka Test series due to an injury sustained during the fourth day’s play at Chattogram.
Shoriful has been ruled out to play for the next four to five weeks, which puts him in a dilemma for the away Test series against West Indies on pace-friendly pitches.
Bangladesh are likely to play the first Test at Antigua from June 16 till 20th before playing the second Test at St. Lucia from June 24.
“From the information we have, we are not getting Taskin in the Tests but we may get him in the white-ball series. Despite all that, we will get the physio’s report from the medical department on 21st and will be able to give an update. There is almost no chance of getting Shoriful in the Tests but we may get him,” said chief selector Minhajul Abedin to the media on Thursday about Shoriful and Taskin, who are likely miss out from the Test squad for West Indies.
On the other hand, with no left-arm pacer in the pipeline for Tests other than Shoriful, the spotlight falls on Mustafizur Rahman, who had previously stated that he preferred not to play in the red-ball format in order to control his workload.
“We have talked to Mustafizur about the next series. We have held the discussions much the same way that we communicate from the selection panel. We will ready the side for the West Indies series after returning to Dhaka and will discuss these issues,” Minhajul said.
“Definitely. When a player is in his best form, we obviously require him. If we need him, we will definitely recruit him,” he added.
