Bangladesh brings up sweeping changes in T20 squad

Bangladesh announced a 15-member squad for the third and fourth matches of the ongoing Tri-nation T20I tri-series at home, bringing up a wholesale changes as they included five players and axed four players from the squad that was announced for the first two matches.
Experienced campaigners like Rubel Hossain and Shafiul Islam were brought back along with Nazmul Hossain Shanto, Aminul Islam Biplob and Naim Sheikh, who are yet to make their debut in T20 format. Shanto however played two Test matches and three ODIs since making his International debut in 2017.
Axe was fallen on Soumya Sarkar, Mahedi Hasan, Abu Haider Rony and Yeasin Arafat Mishu. Soumya Sarkar paid the price of his poor form even though he was a regular with the team across formats. He returned of 4 and 0 in the two tri-series games that led to his axing, said chief selector Minhajul Abedin Nannu. “He has been in poor form for quite some time. So he was axed,” he said here on Monday.
Abu Haider Rony was called up for the second math of the tournament but didn’t get chance to play. Mahedi Hasan and Yeasin Arafat also didn’t play the first two matches despite being in the squad. Fast bowler Mishu however suffered from a side strain which prompted selectors not to consider him.
Bangladesh won the first match against Zimbabwe by three wickets before losing their second match to Afghanistan by 25 runs, a defeat that created a huge uproar and is believed to force a sweeping changes to the squad.
“We wanted to give some news players a chance to see their mettle. T20 is the format where we can make experiment since we have T20 World Cup coming up,” Nannu said.
Action shifted to Chattogram for the second set of round-robin matches as Bangladesh will play two matches against Zimbabwe and Afghanistan there.
Apart from Rubel and Shafiul, the likes of Najmul Hossain Shanto, the left-handed top-order batsman, teenaged legspinning-allrounder Aminul Islam Biplob, and young opening batsman Mohammad Naim Sheikh is completely new to the T20 format. The trio was called up from the Bangladesh HP squad.