Mustafizur Rahman ruled out of the first ODI against South Africa

Bangladesh left-arm pace bowler Mustafizur Rahman has been ruled out of the first ODI of the three-match series against South Africa. He twisted his ankle during the warm-up on Saturday and did not train after that. His availability for the remainder of the series is not clear yet but he will not play the first game on Sunday. Bangladesh have already lost the Test series in which they looked far from convincing and were thumped by the hosts.

Though the One-Day squad is bolstered by the presence of their skipper Mashrafe Mortaza and the ever experienced Shakib-Al-Hasan who has taken a six-month break from the longest format of the game. They will need to perform exceptionally well to beat Proteas at home which is even more dangerous in the shorter formats. The series is expected to be closely fought as the visitors had won the last bilateral series between the two albeit at home.

We don’t know the extent of injury

According to The Daily Star, the left-arm pacer twisted his ankle while warming up during a practice session on Saturday and hasn’t yet undergone a scan to determine the extent of his injury. The chief selector of the team Minhajul Abedin who is also the team manager on the tour confirmed the news of Mustafizur Rahman not playing the first of the series. “Mustafizur twisted his ankle during warm-up before training. He won’t play tomorrow. We can’t tell yet if he will be available for the rest of the series. We’ll know more after we go to Cape Town [for the second ODI in Paarl], we haven’t done a scan yet,” he told Daily Star.

Following the three-match ODI series, which ends on October 22 in East London, Bangladesh’s tour of South Africa will conclude after the two T20Is in Bloemfontein and Potchefstroom on October 26 and 29 respectively.