Mahmudullah has been included in the 27-member preliminary squad for the series against Sri Lanka, with the players awaiting a government order for visa ahead of their upcoming tour. Mahmudullah was earlier asked by the team management to concentrate on white-ball cricket and was also not included in the list of players with Test contracts.

[bad iframe src]

Mahmudullah, Mustafizur included in preliminary squad

September 10 2020

Mahmudullah had earlier been asked by the team management to concentrate on white-ball cricket.

Mahmudullah has been included in the 27-member preliminary squad for the series against Sri Lanka, with the players awaiting a government order for visa ahead of their upcoming tour. Mahmudullah was earlier asked by the team management to concentrate on white-ball cricket and was also not included in the list of players with Test contracts.

[bad iframe src]

Mustafizur Rahman was also named in the squad despite the left-arm pacer not having a red-ball contract as well. Mustafizur is one among nine pace bowlers in the 27-member list, obtained by Cricbuzz, which also includes four spinners. Bangladesh, however, will trim the squad down to 20 players to travel to Sri Lanka.

"Yes, Mahmudullah is there in the 27-member preliminary squad that we prepared for government order ahead of the upcoming tour of Sri Lanka," BCB chief selector Minhajul Abedin told Cricbuzz on Thursday (September 10). "This is just a preliminary squad and we are working on visas for all these players. But when we will get into the hotel for the residential camp ahead of the tour it will be shortened to 20 cricketers.

"We are keeping everyone in the preliminary squad because we have to keep some stand-by. Considering the present COVID situation, stand-by's are very important so we decided to keep seven. We have picked nine pace bowlers in the preliminary squad but that does not mean we will pick all of them as six pace bowlers will travel with us in the 20-member squad. We'll select the 17-member Test squad after going to Sri Lanka and we will send the other three cricketers back to Dhaka," Abedin added.

Bangladesh's tour of Sri Lanka, which was scheduled for July-August, was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bangladesh are expected to travel to Sri Lanka on September 27 and will play two three-day matches against their High Performance squad which will travel with the main team. Bangladesh are also likely to play a three-day match against Sri Lanka A from October 18 while the Test series is likely to begin on October 24 in Kandy.

Bangladesh preliminary squad: Mominul Haque (captain), Tamim Iqbal, Sadman Islam, Saif Hassan, Imrul Kayes, Soumya Sarkar, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mohammad Mithun, Liton Das, Nazmul Hasan Shanto, Mossadek Hossain, Mahmudullah, Yasir Ali, Nurul Hasan, Mehedy Hasan Miraj, Taijul Islam, Sanjamul Islam, Naeem Hasan, Mustafizur Rahman, Rubel Hossain, Shafiul Islam, Taskin Ahmed, Al Amin Hossain, Saifuddin, Ebadat Hossain, Abu Jayed, Hasan Mahmud.