No surprises in Bangladesh squad

Australia

Bangladesh have named a 13-man squad for the first Test against Australia which gets underway in Mirpur on August 27.

The group has a familiar look to it with Bangladesh keen to maintain continuity in order to continue the progress made over the last two years.

Mahmudullah’s ODI form has not been enough to earn him a recall to the Test team, while Monimul Haque also misses out on the squad having been part of the squad that drew the series in Sri Lanka earlier this year.

Chief selector Minhajul Abedin said in Dhaka: “It was expected that Mahmudullah would not be in the squad because he did not play the final Test in Sri Lanka.

“Mominul also missed out the last Test match. In addition, the kind of statistics that we have, they indicate he is not in good form.

“He scored just one fifty in the last six innings since January. Yet, he is in our plan for the future. (But) at the moment, we are preferring Imrul Kayes and Soumya Sarkar more in his position.”

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Mehedi Hasan and Shafiul Islam are likely to start the Test as the frontline spinners while allrounder Shakib-al-Hasan will need to put in a shift as well.

Taskin Ahmed and a fit-again Mustafizur Rahman will need to carry the seam-bowling load between the two of them.

Bangladesh Test squad: Mushfiqur Rahim (c), Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Imrul Kayes, Shakib Al Hasan, Mehedi Hasan, Sabbir Rahman, Nasir Hossain, Liton Das, Mosaddek Hossain, Taskin Ahmed, Shafiul Islam, Mustafizur Rahman

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