|| Sport Correspondent ||

Bangladesh is in dilemma over the opening slot as they are confused whether they will go with an experienced campaigner along with relatively young Sadman Islam or go with two comers against Afghanistan in the one-off Test series, scheduled to start from September5-9.

The absence of Tamim, who decided to take a break in the ongoing Test and following Twenty20 tri-nation involving Afghanistan and Zimbabwe, created the void.

The experienced openers are Liton Kumar Das, Soumya Sarkar or Imrul Kayes while uncapped Saif Hasan just scored a century against Sri Lanka HP unit in the recently concluded three-match series to make a strong claim.

There is also Jahurul Islam who is called back in any kind of national preparation camp after six years in hibernation but according to national selector Habibul Bashar they are yet to make a final call.

“Our regular opener Tamim is not playing in this series. He is our one of the most experienced and proven players. And we had Shadman Islam who played well too But who is going to replace him (Tamim) in this series, we have not thought about it,’’ Habibul told reporters at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on Monday.

‘’We are discussing whether we should introduce someone new or we should see a new pain in opening.  He [Sadman] has been with the team for last few series and he did not play bad. But he is still young. He just started, because Tamim was with him he did not feel much pressure,’’ he said.

‘’So we will see whether we can put some pressure on him now. or we may pick one experienced player so that we can fit experienced and young pair. We are discussing about these matters, that’s why we are being late to announce the squad,’’ he added.

‘’We had our initial meeting with captain and coach on our Test squad. We have a form the squad but we are taking time because we will be playing at home. Maybe we will discuss on 30th or 31st August,’’ he said.

‘Because we have just one Test, so the squad might be with 14. Because we don’t have any other matches, we may include 1-2 players extra who will be playing one-day but not Test. So, we might include 1-2 extra so that they can practice with the team. We have not decided yet, it may be 14 to 16-member group too,’’ he added.