Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) official said on Friday that they are expecting pace bowler Taskin Ahmed to be available during their ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2024 opener against Sri Lanka as his improvement is quite satisfactory.

Bangladesh would start their world cup campaign against Sri Lanka on 7 June in Dallas and selection panel’s decision to include injured Taskin in the 15-member world cup squad turned out to be a big talking point considering there were doubts regarding his participation after he sustained during the fourth T20 against Zimbabwe when he had suffered a displaced fracture in the rib region on the right side.

Paceman Hasan Mahmud, who was included in the squad for the ongoing three-match T20I series, was also included as a reserve player in case Taskin is unable to recover.

A pending MRI scan was supposed to clear the air and the BCB medical department has gotten positive feedback on Taskin’s injury following an MRI scan on Thursday.

“His improvement is very good and satisfying. He is going through a rehabilitation process and undergoing gym training. He is doing running sessions and we will introduce bowling later,” BCB chief physician Debashish Chowdhury told the Daily Sun on Thursday.

“We just got the reports [of MRI scan] and talked to the doctor and it seemed the fracture is almost healed and now we will slowly introduce him to short run-up bowling and later increase the intensity. He is not having any problem with running and now we will be doing throwing sessions in the coming days before starting to bowl with short run-ups,” he added.

“We are hopeful he will be available from the opening game of the World Cup if he continues to progress in this manner,” he concluded.