Bangladesh A tour of India, perfect warm-up ahead of Australia series

Bangladesh selectors on Tuesday announced a strong 15-man ‘A’ squad for their scheduled tour of India. The team has fair amount of experience as all the members of this Mominul Haque – led contingent have already played international cricket. Sandipan Banerjee writes his view about this important short tour.

A strong and experienced Bangladesh ‘A’ side will travel to India in mid-September and play three one-day and two three-day matches in Bangluru and Mysore. The one-dayers (to be played on September 16, 18 and 20) and three-day game (September 27-29) against India A will be played at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, where as the other three-day game will be played against defending champions of Ranji Trophy, Karnataka, at Mysuru from September 22 to 24. READ: BCB announce 15-man squad for Bangladesh A tour of India

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This tour is offering a perfect opportunity for the Bangladesh cricketers to do their dress rehearsal ahead of the two-Test series against Australia in October. The selectors also identified this prospect and included most of their Test probables for this tour of India. They want to give them match practice against a quality side like India A before taking on the Aussies. It is being learnt that the selection was done after consulting Bangladesh head-coach Chandika Hathurusinghe. READ: Bangladesh to send a strong ‘A’ squad to India

In this team there are quality batsmen like skipper Mominul, who is Bangladesh’s No. 3 in the Test team, Soumya Sarkar, who is one of the emerging cricketers of the world at this moment, Sabbir Rahman, who is an important member of their limited overs set-up, and Litton Kumar Das, the second choice wicketkeeper. Apart from them, the pace attack looks very impressive with the inclusion of Rubel Hossain, Taskin Ahmed, Al-Amin Hossain and Shafiul Islam. The spin options of Arafat Sunny, Jubair Hossai and Shuvagata Hom will be handy at the South Indian wickets. READ: MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli likely to play for India A against Bangladesh A

This tour is going to be very crucial for someone like Soumya, Nasir Hossain or Sabbir, who have already established themselves in the limited overs’ format but are yet to excel in Tests. Good performances on this tour against the strong India A side won’t go unnoticed. For Anamul, this is a perfect stage to showcase his talent. Till early 2014, this wicket-keeper batsman was a certainty in the Bangladesh senior side, but loss of form and fitness cost him his place.

According to latest media reports, India A are also expected to field a strong side keeping the South Africa series in mind. Senior pros like MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina and others are likely to play in the limited overs’ matches to get match-fit. Thus, in all probabilities, this series is going be more than just another ‘A’ series.

Bangladesh A’s squad for India tour: Mominul Haque(c), Anamul Haque(wk), Rony Talukdar, Litton Kumar Das, Sabbir Rahman, Soumya Sarkar, Nasir Hossain, Arafat Sunny, Saqlain Sajib, Shuvagata Hom, Rubel Hossain, Taskin Ahmed, Al-Amin Hossain, Shafiul Islam, Jubair Hossai  

(Sandipan Banerjee is a reporter at CricketCountry. Cricket has been the biggest passion for him since his childhood. So, when it came to choosing his career, he chose to turn his passion into his profession. Apart from cricket he likes mountain trekking, river rafting, and photography. His twitter handle is @im_sandipan)