Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) confirmed on Saturday that seven of their players that are named in the draft of Lanka Premier League (LPL) 2 will be unavailable at the start of the tournament due to their series against Australia.
The LPL is scheduled to take place from July 30 to August 22 this year in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh is scheduled to host a five-match T20 series against Australia from August 2-8 at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka.
Bangladesh has a few assignments before T20 World Cup as they are scheduled to host New Zealand and England after Australia to prepare for the World Cup in UAE and Oman later this year.
Bangladesh’s all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal, Mahmudullah, Mehidy Hasan, Taskin Ahmed, Liton Das, and Soumya Sarkar are the ones that will miss the start of LPL to fulfill their national duties.
”They (Bangladeshi cricketers) will not be available from the beginning of LPL as we have series against Australia,”
confirmed by BCB cricket operation chairman, Akram Khan.
”We also have other series lined up but in between, we have some time and they can go at that point and play in the LPL,”
he said.
Akram also gave reference to the contract where it is written that national duties are the first preferences of the players.
BCB has introduced a new clause for their national contract list Bangladesh all-rounder, Shakib Al Hasan opted to skip the Test series against Sri Lanka to make himself available for the Indian Premier League.
BCB has also sent the national contracts to every individual to let them know about their availability for the upcoming year. BCB is yet to disclose the name of 22 players who are part of the contract in 2021 but it is confirmed that 22 players received the letters from the cricket board and 18 of them got a central contract.
”They (Bangladeshi cricketers) will not be available from the beginning of LPL as we have series against Australia,”
BCB cricketoperation chairman Akram Khan confirmed Cricbuzz on Saturday.
”We also have other series lined up but in between, we have some time and they can go at that point and play in the LPL,”
he said.
BCB cleared that all the players are ready to play across all the formats which negated Shakib’s stance of not being part of the Test squad for a long time after he skip the two-match Test series against Sri Lanka for IPL.