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A fractured thumb has forced Mushfiqur Rahim to pull out of Bangladesh’s two-match Test series against Sri Lanka that gets underway on Friday in Sylhet. Bangladesh physio Bayjedul Islam Khan has confirmed that Mushfiqur will require at least three weeks to recover from the fracture.
His replacement is Towhid Hridoy, who has played 38 white-ball internationals but is yet to play Test cricket. This is Hridoy’s maiden call up into the Test set-up and averages 48.05 in first-class cricket.
The 36-year-old Mushfiqur suffered the injury during the second over of the third ODI against Sri Lanka on Monday. He was struck by a Taskin Ahmed delivery on his right thumb and immediately clutched his hand in pain. The team physio worked on him for a bit before Mushfiqur resumed his wicketkeeping duties and later played a match-winning unbeaten 37 in the 236-run chase for Bangladesh.
“After the match, Mushfiqur underwent an X-ray examination in Dhaka, which revealed an avulsion fracture on the MIP joint of his right thumb. He is currently undergoing conservative management for his injury and is expected to be sidelined for around three to four weeks, consequently ruling him out of participation in the Test series against Sri Lanka,” Bayjedul said.
Mushfiqur’s exit is a severe blow to the Bangladesh batting line-up. He has played 88 Tests – the most for any Bangladesh player – and has scored 5676 runs at an average of 38.09. Mushfiqur was also in excellent form in the ODI series finishing as Bangladesh’s second-highest run-scorer behind Najmul Hossain Shanto.
The Bangladesh selectors are yet to announce Mushfiqur’s replacement but they don’t exactly have a lot of choices with proper red-ball experience. The ones who could be considered are Soumya Sarkar, Towhid Hridoy or Tanzid Hasan, while Jaker Ali and Anamul Haque are also fresh from the ODI side. Another choice could be 37-year-old Naeem Islam, who played the last of his eight Tests in 2012. Naeem has been in good red-ball form recently finishing the BCL 2023-24 as the leading run-scorer and the NCL 2023-24 as the joint second-highest run-getter.
Bangladesh will play the first of the two Tests against Sri Lanka in Sylhet before travelling to Chattogram for the second Test that gets underway on March 30. Sri Lanka won the T20I series 2-1 before Bangladesh bounced back to take the ODI leg by the same margin.
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