The National Cricket League, country’s traditional first-class tournament, will lose some of its gloss when the third round begins today as some top players made themselves unavailable.
The tournament suffered a blow when national one-day and Twenty20 captain Mashrafee bin Murtaza was ruled out with fever at the eleventh hour.Mashrafee was hoping to make a comeback for Khulna against Rangpur with the match to prove his fitness for longer-version cricket.
But he was taken to Apollo Hospital in Dhaka with high fever on Thursday effectively ruled him out of the third round.
BCB physician Debashis Chowdhury said that they are suspecting that Mashrafee has contracted dengue, which means the paceman, who is eying a Test return next year, could be unavailable for the next match as well.
Khulna, who are already without Sakib al Hasan, will also miss the services of Somuya Sarkar, who will be traveling Zimbabwe with the ‘A’ team. Their pace bowler Mustafizur Rahman has also been rested at the advice national team coach Chandika Hathurusinghe.
Members of the Bangladesh ‘A’ team, who are due to leave for their tour of South Africa and Zimbabwe on October 14, will also not take part in the NCL.
Barisal, who will face Chittagong at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium, will be denied from the services of their in-form batsman Mosaddek Hossain, who will also be traveling with the ‘A’ team.
Chittagong, however, were still hopeful that Tamim Iqbal would play the match.
Mushfiqur Rahim is expected to return for Rajshahi, who will face Sylhet at Bogra.
Dhaka Metro and Dhaka will play at Fatullah in the other third round match of the day.
-With New Age input
