Mominul appointed as Test captain

Bangladesh have announced their squads for their T20 and Test series against India with Mahmudullah Riyad and Mominul Haque as captain in T20Is and Tests respectively. 

Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan was banned by the International Cricket Council (ICC) for two years with one year of punishment being suspended. In these circumstances, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) selectors had to select a new captain and also a team without their best performer in recent years. 

BCB had announced a T20 squad for their series against India earlier, but due to Mohammad Saifuddin's injury and Tamim Iqbal's withdrawal, they had to bring in some changes. And with Shakib being banned, they had to bring one more change to the squad. The selectors picked Taijul Islam, Mohammad Mithun and Abu Hider Rony to replace Shakib, Tamim and Saif respectively. The new captain of the side for this series was Mahmudullah Riyad. 

The Test team had a couple of noteworthy inclusions as Saif Hassan and Al-Amin Hossain was included in the side. Imrul Kayes also returned to the side after performing well in the local arena. The unexpected decision was to appoint Mominul as the captain of the Test squad as senior players like Mushfiqur Rahim and Mahmudullah Riyad was in the side. 

Asked about the decision of making Mominul the captain of the side, BCB Director of Operations Akram Khan said: "Mominul had a good record in Tests and the board was thinking about the future." Also, Akram added that Mominul had "done well as a captain in the recent tours of the A team and the High Performance team." 

Test Squad: Mominul Haque (captain), Mahmudullah Riyad, Mushfiqur Rahim, Shadman Islam, Imrul Kayes, Saif Hassan, Mustafizur Rahman, Mosaddek Hossain, Liton Das, Mehidy Hasan, Ebadat Hossain, Al-Amin Hossain, Nayeem Hasan, Taijul Islam, Mohammad Mithun, Abu Jayed Rahi