The 30-member preliminary Bangladesh squad declared by the Bangladesh Cricket Board yesterday for the October home series against England is the first national selection by the controversial six-member selection committee.
Even though the High Performance squad announced on Saturday was also from this committee, this is the main one. Experienced Bangladesh campaigners Shahriar Nafees, Raqibul Hasan and Suhrawardi Shuvo made their way into the national squad that begins training on July 20.
Top-order batsman Nafees is back in the fold after three years while Raqibul and Shuvo both are making a return in the national dressing-room since their last appearance in 2011. Raqibul though got a preliminary squad call-up in June 2013.
He is the highest scorer in this season's Dhaka Premier League with 719 runs while Nafees was the highest scorer in the National Cricket League with 715 runs. Shuvo didn't feature high in the batsmen or bowler's chart in any of the domestic competitions but he had some match-winning performances for Victoria Sporting Club, finishing with 205 runs and 17 wickets. He is one of the eight players to have taken more than 15 wickets and also scored more than 200 runs in this year's league.
“Nafees had scored runs in the NCL and we are thinking about him for the longer version. He has been selected on merit of his performance and will be in our observation in the coming days,” said chief selector Minhajul Abedin Nannu.
Nannu is head of the three-member selection panel that includes Habibul Bashar and Sajjad Ahmed. But these three don't get the final say in the squad selection. They have to go through the larger selection committee that includes national head coach Chandika Hathurusingha, team manager Khaled Mahmud and cricket operations committee chairman Akram Khan. Only after Akram approves the squad selected by these six does it reach BCB president Nazmul Hasan for final approval.
This committee was heavily criticised for being too big and being designed to compromise the selectors' independence as a body. It resulted in the resignation of Faruk Ahmed as chief selector.
Those who missed out
Shamsur Rahman was the biggest miss in the preliminary and High Performance squads, although he had a terrific season in both first-class and List-A format.
Shamsur was also the second highest run getter in the NCL 2015-16 season with 578 runs including three centuries and was also among the top five run getters in the Bangladesh Cricket League. He played his last Test back in November 2014 against Zimbabwe and was later dropped from the national side.
According to the chief selector Minhajul, they had a few other options which they needed to consider ahead of Shamsur.
“Definitely Shamsur was in our mind as he scored heavily this season. But as we already have quite a few opening batsmen in the line-up we were not able to pick him in the 30-member squad. But still we have some plans with these players and definitely they are in our mind for the future,” said Minhajul.
The new selection committee also overlooked Imtiaz Hossain, another consistent run scorer in the domestic tournaments. He was among the top 10 run-getters in the DPL and also was came in third in the NCL batting chart. Left-arm spinner Mosharraf Hossain will also feel aggrieved after taking 36 first-class wickets, 16 in the BPL at an average of 10.31 while scoring 350 runs and taking 12 wickets in the BPL. It is hard to match such allround showing in domestic cricket.
Also missing is the veteran Abdur Razzak, who hasn't played for Bangladesh since 2014. He took 56 first-class wickets this season along with 18 wickets in the DPL. But as was the case with the Faruk-led selection panel, there hasn't been any interest in Razzak.
Bangladesh preliminary squad: Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Imrul Kayes, Liton Das, Anamul Haque, Shuvagata Hom, Sabbir Rahman, Arafat Sunny, Taijul Islam, Suhrawardi Shuvo, Mosaddek Hossain, Jubair Hossain, Mohammad Mithun. Mashrafe bin Mortaza, Shahriar Nafees, Muktar Ali, Rokibul Hasan, Kamrul Islam Rabbi, Mominul Hoque, Mustafizur Rahman, Shakib al Hasan, Al Amin Hossain, Mahmudullah, Shafiul Islam, Nasir Hossain, Mohammad Shahid, Mushfiqur Rahim, Taskin Ahmed, Nurul Hasan, Rubel Hossain