The already daunting task facing Bangladesh in the three-match ODI series against South Africa starting today became much tougher yesterday afternoon when pace spearhead Mustafizur Rahman twisted his ankle during warm-up and was subsequently ruled out of today’s first ODI.
“Mustafizur twisted his ankle during warm-up before training,” Bangladesh chief selector and team manager for this tour, Minhajul Abedin, informed The Daily Star yesterday. “He won’t play tomorrow [the first ODI on Sunday].”
It was learnt that the swelling from the injury is quite severe. “We can’t tell yet if he will be available for the rest of the series,” added Minhajul. “We’ll know more after we go to Cape Town (for the second ODI in Paarl), we haven’t done a scan yet.”
The tour started with star opener Tamim Iqbal sustaining a thigh muscle tear in the three-day warm-up match in Benoni on September 21. He aggravated that injury during the first Test in Potchefstroom, leading him to be ruled out of the second Test in Bloemfontein and then running a race against time to be fit for today’s ODI. Soumya Sarkar also missed the first Test with a shoulder injury picked up in the Benoni practice match.
The silver lining in the dark cloud is that Tamim ran at something approaching full tilt at the Diamond Oval yesterday, and appeared to be okay afterwards, increasing the chances of his making a comeback to the side today.
Source: The Daily Star
