The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) is set to recall left-arm spinner Nasum Ahmed from the UAE after the visa troubles faced by leg spinner Rishad Hossain and fast bowler Nahid Rana was sorted out. Both the players were stuck at Dubai International Airport for three days due to invalid entry visas.
Nasum had been flown to Dubai on Friday, May 16, as a precautionary measure while the team waited for the update on the standard players. However on Friday night, the visaproblem was resolved and both Rishad and Nahid were able to join the Bangladesh National team ahead of their first T20I against the UAE.
“Nasum will be arriving here tomorrow. As there was a visa-related issue, we were a bit confused, and as a back-up plan, we sent Nasum to the UAE yesterday. Now that they have received their visas and joined the team, Nasum will return home,” Shahriar Nafees, BCB’s cricket operations in-charge, told The Daily Star on Saturday, May 17.
He also mention that the experienced left arm pacer Mustafizur Rehman will only be available for the first game. “It was a contingency plan. Along with their not receiving the visas, Mustafizur [Rahman] is also set to leave the team after playing one game. Nasum was more of a back-up option for us,” Nafees added.
Joining the nation team squad as a backup, Nasum was the part of the Bangladesh ‘A’ team in Sylhet but din not feature in the fourth day match against New Zealand ‘A’.
In the first T20I in Sharjah, UAE won the toss and opted , and opted to bowl first. Despite an early loss of Tanzid Hasan, a strong partnership between Parvez Hossain Emon , who scored a brilliant century and Litton Das helped Bangladesh reach 55/2 in the powerplay. With good support from the bowlers, the match was won by Bangladesh by 27 runs.
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