cricket

Updated: Nov 01, 2019 08:44 IST

India may feel the pinch on missing regular captain and best batsman in limited overs cricket in the upcoming T20I series against Bangladesh but for the visitors, it hardly matters. Ahead of the series opening T20I in New Delhi’s Arun Jaitley Stadium, Virat Kohli’s absence from the series was the last thing in the Bangladesh cricketers’ mind. “It doesn’t really matter whether Kohli is playing or not honestly,” said Liton Das after Bangladesh’s first practice session on Thursday.

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Kohli had been playing non-stop cricket this year which included an Australia tour, IPL and the ODI World Cup. The India captain was supposed to take a break from the limited overs leg of the West Indies tour post World Cup but decided against it at the very last moment.

Finally, Kohli decided to pay heed to trainers looking after his workload and chose to give the Bangladesh T20Is a miss. Rohit Sharma was named captain in his absence.

“If he has decided to rest, there must be a reason, we are not concerned about that. Every player has his own body to look after to. And it’s not like India are weak in his absence. They have a lot of good players in their team.” Liton said.

The attaching Bangladesh wicket keeper batsman in fact pointed out that his team is missing key players too when asked to whether Kohli’s absence will boost their chances.

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“We are short of our most experienced players from this series. So ultimately we have to play with what we have,” Liton added.

Bangladesh are without the likes of Tamim Iqbal and Shakib Al Hasan in this India series. While Tamim skipped the tour because of personal reasons, Shakib was slapped with a 2-year-ban because of not reporting a corrupt approach to ACU.

Bangladesh T20I squad: Mahmudullah (C), Liton Das, Soumya Sarkar, Mohammad Naim, Mushfiqur Rahim, Afif Hossain, Mosaddek Hossain, Aminul Islam, Arafat Sunny, Al-Amin Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman, Shafiul Islam, Mohammad Mithun, Taijul Islam, Abu Hider.