Bangladesh won’t take Afghanistan lightly: chief selector

As Afghanistan are set to face Bangladesh in an all-format tour, Bangladesh’s chief selector has said that they are currently giving their full focus on the series and are planning to set up teams for it.

“We’re not thinking about what is being talked outside. The World Cup is still four months away. We have series against Afghanistan and we are thinking of these back-to-back series,” Minhaju Abedin said, Bangladesh’s New Age newspaper reported.

“We will be hosting Afghanistan in all three formats so we are now organizing our teams for that. I think we are the only Test-playing side who are discussing the World Cup now. We have to make a team for the World Cup keeping the fitness and performance of the players in mind,” he said.

The former national captain also informed that they will finalise the squads for Afghanistan series by next week and the players will start their preparation for that series on May 29.

“We are now preparing the squad for the Afghanistan series and we are hopeful to form the squads and inform the BCB next week. The practice session will start on 29th [May],” he said, adding that there had been no discussion regarding resting all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan in the series.

“We didn’t have any discussion about it. He [Shakib] will need six-week time for recovery as there was a fracture. He might miss the Test series. But as there is a long gap before the ODI series, I expect him to return to the ODI squad,” said Minhajul.

Meanwhile, Minhajul also denied to make any experiment against Afghanistan in the upcoming series and was hopeful to field the best possible side.

Bangladesh don’t have a good record against the Afghans, especially in the longer format, as they lost the only Test between the two sides by a massive 224-run margin in Chattogram in 2019.

“We won’t do any experiments. Afghanistan are a very good side. We had a bad experiment against them as we lost the last Test. We won’t take them lightly. We will try to name the best possible side against Afghanistan,” he concluded.

Afghanistan will play the one-off Test in Dhaka from June 14 to 18, after which they will leave for India. They will return to Bangladesh on July 1 to play three ODIs in Chattogram from July 5 to 11.

They will also play two T20Is in Sylhet on July 14 and 16, which will conclude the series.