Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan may not be allowed to play in the Sri Lankan Premier League Twenty20 tournament (SLPL) due to a knee injury.
Shakib was among five Bangladeshi cricketers who were selected by Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) to feature in the Twenty20 tournament scheduled be held from August 10 to 31.
It was learnt that during yesterday’s meeting of the cricket operations committee most of the members expressed negative opinions about Shakib’s participation in the Sri Lankan competition as they believe it may aggregate the injury.
When asked about the matter, BCB’s media committee chairman Jalal Yunus said: “We recommended giving the green signal for the selected players but yes, we have reservations about Shakib’s participation. What we learnt is that he has some problem with his knee and in that case we can’t take any risk with our best player when we have the T20 World Cup and home series against West Indies in September and November. The board will take the final decision after talking with physio (Vibhav Singh) and head coach (Richard Pybus).”
National skipper Mushfiqur Rahim, all-rounder Nasir Hossain, left-arm spinner Elias Sunny and dashing opener Tamim Iqbal were the other players selected for the competition.
The cricket operations committee also discussed the domestic calendar and new pool system for the national players.
“We found no logic this time to make a pool because the national players will be busy with national duties during the domestic competition. So there is every chance that this time we will not make any list of pool players,” informed Yunus.
He also said that the next season will kick off with the longer-version games of the National Cricket League (NCL) from the first week of October this year and it will continue until the second edition of the BPL, which is expected to start from the second week of January and finish in the second week of February.
It is expected that the Premier Division Cricket League will start from the third week of February.
“These are all proposals which will be approved by the board. We also discussed the tour of Sri Lanka in February-March next year, where we will play two Tests and three ODIs and a tour of Zimbabwe in April. We are trying to convince our Zimbabwean counterparts to arrange three Tests, three ODIs and two T20Is during that tour,” added Yunus.
-With The Daily Star input