Bangladesh Head Coach Russell Domingo Hints At A New Opening Pair For Australia T20s

Bangladesh head coach Russell Domingo has said that the home side could field a new opening pair in the form of Mohammad Mithun and Shakib Al Hasan in the upcoming T20I series against Australia in case their regular openers suffer any injury.

Bangladesh opened with the duo of Soumya Sarkar and Naeem Sheikh during the T20I series against Zimbabwe which they won 2-1 but any emergency might force them to field a new opening pair.

The home side will be without the services of veteran opener Tamim Iqbal and Liton Das.

They will take on Australia in a five-match T20I series on home soil between August 3-9.

While Shakib has never opened the batting for Bangladesh in T20I cricket, he is coming off a good outing in Zimbabwe following an extended lean patch.

Mohammad Mithun, on the other hand, is also a predominantly middle-order batter but his average of 10.58 in 17 games is the lowest among all batters in the squad.

“We are discussing about it. We have Shakib Al Hasan, whom we might use for opening. Mohammad Mithun returned to the side. Even though he’s a middle-order batsman, we might use him to open. If anyone gets injured, we might use them. We have the players to cover for the situations,” Russell Domingo said, after revealing that Soumya Sarkar is suffering from a niggle after the Zimbabwe tour.

Apart from Tamim Iqbal and Liton Das, Bangladesh will be without the services of their talismanic wicketkeeper-batsman, Mushfiqur Rahim.

Rahim, who did not feature in the ODI and T20I series against Zimbabwe due to personal reasons, missed out on the Australian series after he failed to get into the bio-bubble before the deadline prescribed by BCB and CA.

Bangladesh will also be without Aminul Islam and Mehedy Hasan Miraz but Domingo is confident that he has enough backup options at his disposal.

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