Former Bangladesh skipper Mohammad Ashraful is likely to be approached by Kent to play for them in the upcoming Twenty20 campaign, revealed their coach Jimmy Adams on Thursday.
Ashraful, 27, is currently playing for Blackheath – and also coaching the side – in the Kent Premier League and scored a century on Saturday that caught the attention of the Kent authorities who are looking for their second overseas player.
He made 100 against Bromley and claimed a hat-trick (3-1) with the ball.
Adams was unaware that Ashraful was around, but he pledged to ‘immediately look into it’ and see if something could be done to get him in the side after a local journalist informed him about the batsman.
‘I didn’t know he was around, but if he’s here I won’t rule out anything. It’s a lead,’ the Kent coach was quoted as saying on a local website.
‘We have to be mindful of the players we already have as we’re trying to create an environment where the players get as much of an opportunity as they can. But it’s definitely something I’ll look at,’ said Adams.
Pakistani all-rounder Azhar Mahmood, the only overseas player of Kent, and Darren Stevens played for Dhaka Gladiators in the Bangladesh Premier League alongside Ashraful, while his Blackheath team-mate Daniel Bell-Drummond is also a Kent player.
If Ashraful gets to play
for Kent he will be the third Bangladeshi, after Sakib al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal, to play in the county. Sakib earlier played for Worcestershire and is linked with Essex this season while Tamim represented Nottinghamshire in their Twenty20 tournament last season.
Ashraful, who has been in and out of the national team, has made three centuries and 20 fifties in 171 one-day internationals while he also has five tons and eight half-centuries in Tests.
-With New Age input
