Dhaka – Tamim Iqbal and Soumya Sarkar struck centuries in the one-off practice game against West Indies. That would have been a reason of joy for Bangladesh coach Steve Rhodes ahead of the three-match one-day series against the same opponent. But it’s not. The success of the southpaw batsmen made Rhodes find himself in a selection dilemma.Tamim Iqbal was out of action since the Asia Cup opener against Sri Lanka where he sustained a nasty blow on his left wrist that ended his tournament in an unexpected manner. After having recovered that injury, Tamim is now fit to rturn to the international cricket, and the selectors already called him to the Tigers’ one-day squad.
The Bangladesh coach wanted to see Tamim’s current condition to play at the highest level of the game after a long period of three months, and he was presented at Bangladesh Krira Shikkha Protishthan (BKSP) on Thursday when Tamim smashed a 70-ball hundred. Soumya Sarkar, who has been struggling with his consistency, also hit a ton to win the game for the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) XI in the same match.
And that was enough for Steve Rhodes to find himself in a selection problem.”It’s going to be tough decision for the Bangladesh team management (to pick the openers), but what a wonderful position to be in. We are desperate for some depth of cricketers in Bangladesh, and we are now showing that we have quite a few,” he said.
The coach said Imrul got 349 runs against Zimbabwe and Tamim has come back to form. Liton Das got an 80-odd against Zimbabwe and not too long away, a hundred in the Asia Cup final. Soumya has got a hundred at No 3 and a hundred today. I don’t know the final XI, so don’t ask me,” Rhodes told reporters after the BCB XI won the practice game by 51 by DLS method due to the insufficient light.
Tamim is all set to make a comeback to Bangladesh playing XI. That made Bangladesh team management’s call tough for the second opener.
Soumya raised his claim hitting a ton in the last match of Zimbabwe series. Before doing that, he also struck a century in a 50-over practice game in BKSP against the same opponent. Imrul Kayes is also cannot be ignored as he cracked more than 300 runs in the last one-day series of Bangladesh with two centuries to his credit. The other opener, who is the part of Bangladesh one-day squad, is Liton Das who recorded his first one-day ton in the Asia Cup final against mighty opponent India that made his omission from the limited-overs setup nearly impossible.
In all, the Bangladesh team management is now in a selection conundrum, especially for selecting the openers, which also came as a sweet pain that Bangladesh hardly get chance to go through.UNB
