When the Bangladesh Cricket Board named a 16-man squad for the three-match ODI series against the West Indies, middle-order batsman Mahidul Islam Ankon received his first ODI call-up. The team that saw the comeback of opener Soumya Sarkar in the 50-over format did not include pacer Nahid Rana and opener Naim Sheikh, who were involved in the just finished ODI series against Afghanistan.
In February of last year, Soumya participated in the Champions Trophy. Cricbuzz recently stated that Litton is unlikely to make it to the ODIs due to the side strain injury that he sustained in Asia Cup and after getting the scan data , the team management chose to sit him as they decided not to take any chance with their T20I skipper. On 18, 21, and 23, respectively, the three ODIs are slated to take place at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium.
Bangladesh squad:Mehidy Hassan Miraz (c), Tanzid Hasan Tamim, Soumya Sarker, Mohammed Saif Hasan, Najmul Hossain Shanto, Towhid Hridoy, Mahidul Islam Anton, Jaker Ali, Shamim Hossain, Nurul Hasan, Rishad Hossain, Tanvir Islam, Taskin Ahmed, Mustafizur Rahman, Tanzim Hasan Sakib, Hasan Mahmud
“Recently, especially in white-ball cricket, in T20s, we have had some remarkable successes. But our recent performance against Afghanistan has absolutely blurred those recent successes,” Gazi Ashraf Hossain, Bangladesh’s chief selector, said.
“Such a performance – I think none of us who watch cricket, who are involved with cricket, or even those who play – expected that such a result could happen. However, it’s true that our weaknesses have been completely exposed, especially our batting weaknesses have come out clearly. We definitely have to overcome those as quickly as possible.”
He was optimistic, nevertheless, that his team would be able to combat the West Indies more effectively if they played at home.
“However, our opponent now is the West Indies. We are not playing on that pitch in Abu Dhabi. We are playing at our home ground, on the Mirpur wicket. And we are not facing spinners like Rashid or other high-quality spinners. That’s a bit of a relief for us. And the pain the players are carrying now – especially because of such a defeat, where we occupied the pitch for so little time, couldn’t regularly bat for 50 overs, and against Afghanistan, we couldn’t even properly play half of the quota – that’s something we really need to recover from,” he said.
“Carrying that pain inside is extremely difficult for a player, and the players are completely overwhelmed by physical and mental exhaustion – there is no doubt about that. However, returning to the field so quickly is as challenging as it is necessary – coming back from such a mindset, from such a shattered state. At the same time, I believe that by returning quickly to playing good cricket and finding success, we can recover from the shame we faced against Afghanistan – especially in batting – and bring ourselves back to a place of success.
You’ve also seen this team. We did not include Nahid Rana as one of the five seamers in this team from the one that faced Afghanistan.
He went on to say, “Soumya Sarkar is a very experienced player, having played around 80 ODIs and been part of the team for about 10 years,” in order to justify the choice to bring him back into the squad. And against the same West Indies team we are currently playing, he had a lot of success with the bat in November of last year. As you are all aware, Litton Das is not on the squad, thus we have replaced him with Soumya Sarkar, who has experience.
Mahidul Islam Ankon’s addition is another modification. “The team’s middle order has suffered a lot; almost everyone, you could say, has been struggling with a lack of runs,” he said. Therefore, we have appointed Mahidul Islam Ankon to that role. In 2027, Bangladesh will also participate in the ODI World Cup, and Mahidul Islam Ankon’s name will undoubtedly stand out among the talented and promising players in that competition. We have strengthened the squad’s depth by adding him, which has given the captain and team management more choices. Additionally, it will enable us to offer a brief respite to one or two players who have been struggling at bat.
“That opportunity has been created by bringing in Ankon. After this, we have a T20 series against the West Indies. So, we haven’t excluded any of our main middle-order batsmen from the setup. Everyone will stay with the team in training for the ODIs. For that reason, we have just added one player to the middle order without removing anyone, and the squad has been kept at 16 members.”
