We are not focusing only on Rashid Khan: Shadman Islam

Bangladesh Test opener Shadman Islam, on Thursday, has said that the team are not only focusing upon encountering Rashid Khan during the one-off Test match against Afghanistan scheduled to start on September 5.

Rashid Khan, who had been appointed as the captain of the Test side, became the key bowler of Afghan camp in recent days, but Bangladesh opener said the team is accustomed of playing good spin in home soil.

Shadman said as quoted by Cricbuzz,

“Bowling in Tests and shorter formats are different and we face lots of good quality bowlers in our domestic cricket. Though it might be slightly better in international cricket, I think if we play sensibly it won’t be a problem.

”I know Afghanistan have a good spin attack. I always work on handling pace bowling, but they have spinners like Rashid Khan, Mohammad Nabi, and they are good spinners with good variations. I think I should leave the ball that is spinning away and not go chasing at wide deliveries,” he added.

Shadman has so far played three Test matches after making debut in 2018 against West Indies at home said all he will try to do is to play natural game.

“I will try to play my natural game. I will play like I play in first-class matches or with A team. We have lots of four-day matches with the A team keeping in mind that there is a Test Championship now. We were sent to India with BCB XI and we started out practice for this Test from there.”

It can be noted that both Bangladesh and Afghanistan are going to enter into the World Test Championship through this series.

Afghanistan will arrive on August 30th to play the one-off Test series. After that, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and and Zimbabwe will participate in a Tri-nation T20I series.