Bangladesh pacer Taskin Ahmed announced on Wednesday (July 22) that he will resign from the Lanka Premier League (LPL) to prepare for the forthcoming Test trip of Australia. Taskin, who landed in Dhaka with the Zimbabwean team, was scheduled to travel to Sri Lanka to play for the Jaffna Kings in the competition.
Bangladesh are set to depart in August for an important tour of Australia, where they will play two Tests for the first time since 2003.
Taskin had initially secured a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) to participate in the tournament, but was anticipated to miss the T20I series against Zimbabwe.
However, he remained in Zimbabwe for the series as Mustafizur Rahman was ruled out owing to injury.
“Yeah, I had withdrawn myself from LPL and it is mainly for Australia Test series preparation,” Taskin told Cricbuzz. “We played six back-to-back matches in Zimbabwe; perhaps I would have gotten four matches (in the LPL).
“If I return home after my stint in the LPL and immediately go to Australia, my Test match preparation will be hampered,” he remarked.
“Despite a minor loss. I thought it was fine because the Australia series would not come around very often.That’s why I made the decision to withdraw from the LPL despite having the NOC,” he added.
The Bangladesh team management is particularly concerned about Nahid Rana, who suffered a left side strain during the second T20I against Zimbabwe. The young fast bowler failed to complete his spell. Rana, who came earlier in the day, will be scanned to evaluate the severity of the injury.
Meanwhile, left-arm pacer Shoriful Islam is in rehab after sustaining a hamstring injury during the Zimbabwe tour. If his rehabilitation goes as expected, he will be in contention for the first Test, as the average recovery time for such an injury is about three weeks.
The two Test matches, part of the ongoing World Test Championship cycle, will take place in Darwin (August 13-17) and Mackay (August 22-26).
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