Five Indian players to play Asia XI vs World XI Series in Bangladesh, confirms BCCI

Bangladesh will be hosting a series of two T20I matches next year to be played between Asia XI and World XI to celebrate the 100^th birth anniversary of the father of their nation, ‘Bangabandhu’ Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The matches have been granted official T20I status by the International Cricket Council (ICC) and the Indian board has confirmed sending five players for the same.

Meanwhile, fans’ hopes of seeing Indian and Pakistan players playing in the same XI might not come to a realization, as there are messages that no Pakistan player has been invited to join the Asia XI team, which will be comprised of Indian, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan and possibly Afghanistani players. The two matches will be played on March 18 and March 21, 2020 in Dhaka.

No names confirmed by BCCI yet

Though the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has requested the crème of the Indian players in MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and Rohit Sharma to be sent for the marquee series; the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is yet to confirm on the names of the five players that it has confirmed to participate in the series.

BCCI joint secretary Jayesh George confirmed that the final call on the players’ names will be taken by Sourav Ganguly, the BCCI President. “Our board has decided to send five players. It has been left to the BCCI president (Sourav Ganguly) to decide which five players would go to Bangladesh,” he was quoted as saying by bdcrictime.com.

BCB CEO Nizamuddin Chaudhary also talked about the two-match series and added that the board had requested all the Asian countries to send players based on their availability. But George mentioned that no Pakistani player will be invited as per messages received by the BCCI. ”

What we are aware of is that there will be no Pakistan players in the Asia XI. That is what the message is, so, there is no question of both countries coming together or picking one over the other,” he was quoted as saying by The Times of India.

It remains to be seen which big names Sourav Ganguly approves to be sent to Bangladesh to participate in the historic T20I series, which is extremely important for the Bangladeshi board.

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