Pacer Mashrafe Bin Mortaza was picked up by Gemcon Khulna following a lottery at the BCB office today, a media release from Khulna confirmed.
The former Bangladesh captain, who has recently recovered from a hamstring injury, has been subject of interest by three to four teams in the tournament, forcing the organisers to call for a lottery.
Mashrafe, who returned to training on Tuesday, December 1, has been out of action since March this year after playing the ODI series against Zimbabwe, a series where he stepped down as the captain of the ODI team.
The pacer underwent fitness test and also Covid-19 test and passed both.
“We at Gemcon Khulna are very excited and delighted that we could get Mashrafe’s signature among the four participating teams. Mashrafe hasn’t played for any Khulna franchises in the past even in BPL so this is a big achievement for us that he, who is from Khulna Division’s Narail and a member of the parliament, will play for us in the Bangabandhu T20 Cup.
Mashrafe was initially left out of the 180-man draft for this tournament held on November 12 as he was still recovering from injury at that time. But since his return to training, teams like Gemcon Khulna, Fortune Barishal, Minister Group Rajshahi and Beximco Dhaka have reportedly showed interest to get him.
Mashrafe will join national team colleagues Mahmudullah Riyad and Shakib Al Hasan at Khulna.
