Bangladesh opener Anamul Haque Bijoy said on Wednesday that he is well prepared for the Asia Cup courtesy of his stint in the Bangladesh Tigers programme under head coach Jamie Siddons.
The Bangladesh Cricket Board earlier on the day made a surprising call when they named Anamul as the replacement for Liton Das after the latter was ruled out of the tournament for not recovering completely from the illness.
“As I was in the Tigers camp under Jamie Siddons coaching, my preparation is good and let’s see how it turns out to be (in the middle) if I get a chance (to play),” he added.
BCB chief selector Minhajul Abedin said that they included Anamul as they needed a top-order batter who could keep wicket as well and because of that, the 30-year old cricketer got the nod.
Anamul has played 44 ODIs so far and scored 1254 runs which included three hundreds. His previous ODI appearance for Bangladesh was against India in December last year. Anamul made 11 and eight runs respectively in two games before he was dropped from the side.
In the Dhaka Premier League, the country’s traditional list A tournament, Anamul played for Abahani Limited this year and scored 834 runs in 16 matches with an average of 59.57. His strike rate was 97.31 during the tournament and he also hit the highest three centuries.
