Bangla selectors wield axe on Ashraful and Saleh
by Cricket Archive Staff Reporter
DateLine: 20th November 2006
Bangladesh's selectors on Sunday dropped out-of-form batsmen Mohammad
Ashraful and Rajin Saleh from a 13-man squad for the first three
one-day internationals against Zimbabwe.
"Ashraful and Rajin are not in form and so they have been dropped from
the squad," chief selector Faruk Ahmed said.
Middle-order batsman Tushar Imran returned to the squad after being
ignored for the recent Champions Trophy in India. Zimbabwe will play
five one-dayers and a Twenty20 international on their upcoming tour of
Bangladesh. The Twenty20 match is on November 28 at Khulna, followed by
the first one-dayer at the same venue on November 30.
Saleh and Ashraful are among the four Bangladeshi batsmen to score a
century in one-day internationals, but have been struggling for runs in
recent matches. Ashraful's hundred came in his team's famous victory
over world champions Australia in a triangular series match at Cardiff
in England last year. He is also the country's youngest batsman to make
a Test hundred. Ashraful has scored 1,411 runs in 78 one-day
internationals and Saleh 1,005 in 43.
Shahriar Nafees, the only Bangladeshi batsman to score two hundreds in
one-dayers, will lead the side in the country's first-ever Twenty20
international. He scored an unbeaten 123 - the highest by a Bangladeshi
in the shorter version of the game - in his team's victory over
Zimbabwe in the Champions Trophy last month.
Bangladesh one-day squad: Habibul Bashar (capt), Shahriar Nafees,
Khaled Mashud, Aftab Ahmed, Mohammad Rafique, Tushar Imran, Mashrafe
Mortaza, Shahadat Hossain, Abdur Razzak, Syed Rasel, Saqibul Hasan,
Farhad Reza, Mehrab Hossain. Coach: Dav Whatmore.
