BAN vs NZ: Bangladesh Squad For New Zealand ODIs Announced; Tamim Iqbal, Mahmudullah Return

On Saturday, September 16, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) made the squad announcement for the upcoming three-match ODI series between the Bangladesh National Cricket Team and the New Zealand National Cricket Team.

The three-match series is set to be played on September 21, 23 and 26. The venue for all three matches will be the Shere Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur. The series will provide the teams a good preparation ahead of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023, which will be held in India.

Bangladesh recently took part in the Asia Cup 2023 where they had a decent campaign. However, they finished on a high by defeating the India National Cricket Team by 6 runs in the final Super Four game of the competition.

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Meanwhile, there have been a lot of changes in the Bangladesh squad for the first two of the three ODIs against the BlackCaps. Tamim Iqbal, Mahmudullah, and Soumya Sarkar have returned to the squad while Naim Sheikh, Afif Hossain, and Shamim Hossain have been left out.

Tamim had recently announced his retirement from international cricket but he took a U-turn after Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina convinced him to do so.

Litton Das To Lead In Shakib Al Hasan’s Absence

Shakib Al Hasan has been rested for the first two ODIs alongside Mushfiqur Rahim, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Taskin Ahmed, Hasan Mahmud, and Shoriful Islam. In the absence of Shakib, Litton will be taking over the leadership role.

Talking about the squad, the BCB Chairman Minhajul Abedin Nannu said that they have decided to provide the rest to some players keeping in mind the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023.

“The decision to rest players was taken in consideration of the World Cup in India which will be a long tournament where ensuring the mental and physical fitness of the cricketers will be very important. The series against New Zealand provides us an opportunity to take a look at some other players as well ahead of this major event,” he said.

“The squad is a blend of experience and youth and only Zakir, Khaled and Rishad have not featured in ODIs yet. Zakir was very close to playing against Ireland in March before he suffered an unfortunate injury. Khaled has done well in his list A career and Rishad offers a different dimension to our bowling attack.”

Bangladesh squad for first two ODIs

Litton Das (capt), Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Anamul Haque, Tawhid Hridoy, Mahmudullah, Nurul Hasan, Mahedi Hasan, Nasum Ahmed, Mustafizur Rahman, Tanzim Hasan Sakib, Tanzid Hasan Tamim, Zakir Hasan, Rishad Hossain and Syed Khaled Ahmed