Selection confusion continues

Bangladesh Cricket Board included opener Mohammad Naim in their squad for the upcoming Asia Cup after Nurul Hasan Sohan and Hasan Mahmud were ruled out with injuries, displaying yet another act of confusion about their squad selection process.

When the 17-member squad for the Asia Cup was declared, there were some questions as only two openers, Anamul Haque and Parvez Hossain Emon, were included.

Also, Nurul was yet recovering from an injury, and his availability was under question. Later, Hasan injured his ankle during training.

Both were ruled out on Monday, and Naim was included, reducing the squad size to 16. That only brought in more questions as to why an opener came in to replace a wicketkeeper-batsman and a pacer.

Yes, Bangladesh needed another opener in the squad, especially when Parvez has only one international match in his repertoire, but why instead of someone who bats in the middle-order and a fast-bowler?

This means now the Tigers lack depth in the middle-order and the fast-bowling department. They will have to rely on Mustafizur Rahman, Taskin Ahmed, Mohammad Saif Uddin, and Ebadot Hossain. Among them, Ebadot has played only one limited-overs international match, which was not a Twenty20 International.

Also, Naim was picked after his century for Bangladesh A against West Indies A in a 50-over match. The opener had been dropped from the national team in March stating that his style did not suit the shortest format, and there were plenty of reasons to believe that.

The left-handed opener has a career strike rate of 103.71, and in his last nine innings before being dropped, he did not score a fifty, and his strike rate went past 100 only once.

And since the axing, Naim did not play any form of top-level T20 cricket, let alone perform, to make his selection justified.

BCB chief selector Minhajul Abedin also could not find a proper reason for his selection and explained that they were helpless.

“We just had two openers in the squad, so we took another one. There are questions about his (Naim) performances, but that is the reality for most of our cricketers. Nobody has done very well in this format. That is why we took him as our backup opener. There was no other way. We had to take someone,” Minhajul told a national online media.

Naim’s performance in the last season of the Bangladesh Premier League was also disappointing as he was not even being picked in the XI by his team Minister Dhaka. In the seven innings he played, he scored 50 runs with an average of 8.33 and a strike rate of 65.78.

His subpar performances in BPL explained newly-appointed T20I skipper Shakib Al Hasan’s frustration as the tournament failed to provide the national team with quality T20 players.

“BPL is the only way we can check our resources in the format. We don’t have performers outside of the BPL. I want to see at least two or three players emerge out of the BPL every season but barring Mohammad Saifuddin and Mahedi Hasan, there haven’t been many in the last few years. It is disappointing that we haven’t found that many players from the BPL despite having it for so long,” he said in a press conference on Monday.

Such selection errors do not happen once in a blue moon in Bangladesh cricket. During the last West Indies tour, Yasir Ali Chowdhury, a middle-order batsman, was injured and out of the Test series, and his replacement for him was Anamul, who is an opener.

In the last T20I series against Zimbabwe, when Nurul got injured, the team management reportedly wanted to make do with the players available. But Mahmudullah Riyad was sent anyway, and he played the final match.

These unreasonable selection choices have not been uncommon for BCB, and there are no signs of them changing that. They are yet to announce the three reserve players for the Asia Cup, and some similar decisions might pop up there too.