Sussex captain Luke Wright has said that they are ready to give Mustafizur Rahman some time off before his stint with the county next month. Reports suggest that they expect him to make his debut on June 10 in the NatWest T20 Blast game against Kent in Hove.
Given the progress of the Hyderabad Sunrisers in the ongoing IPL, it is likely that he will be busy till May 29, after which he is supposed to join Sussex for the NatWest T20 Blast and the Royal London One-Day Cup.
But he has recently informed people close to him in Dhaka that he is eager for a break after the IPL. But the general view in the BCB is that they want Mustafizur to play in the UK, which they feel will set him up strongly in his career.
Wright was confident that Mustafizur, who has already missed their first NatWest T20 Blast match against Gloucestershire on Friday, would play a number of games for Sussex whenever he arrives in Hove.
‘Fizz is definitely coming but we are just clarifying the number of games he is going to play,’ Wright told the Argus. ‘We have to understand he is a young lad who has been away from home for a long time in an environment where he doesn’t speak the language. He’s also played a lot of games so we want to give him enough time to rest so that when he does come over we get the best out of him.
‘We always knew he was likely to miss the first two games so it is a case of whether he misses an extra game or not. Obviously we’d like him for as many games as possible as he is in such great form but either way he’ll still be available for a large chunk of the matches.’
Wright said that they would wait for Mustafizur to arrive, given the reputation he already carries. He has so far taken 15 wickets in the IPL, after performing exceedingly well for Bangladesh against India, South Africa and Zimbabwe last year, and in the World T20 this year.
‘When we did our research on him people told us what a big player he was going to be. When someone like Kumar Sangakkara says he is a special talent then you sit up and take notice.
‘He’s proving how good he is out in India at the moment so we’ve done very well to get him on the deal we have as I don’t think he’ll be quite so cheap in the future,’ he said.
Source: New Age
