National selectors had originally announced a 15-member squad for the Zimbabwe and Kenya tours where it seemed that Mohammad Rafique has been given the job to shoulder the responsibility of the spin attack with only debutant left-arm spinner Sakib Al Hasan as backup.

There was whispering that the Faruque Ahmed-led selection panel had to weaken their spin department because of the dubious inclusion of young wicket-keeper cum batsman Mushfiqur Rahim.

But Faruque dismissed the allegation saying that they have taken the tour as an opportunity to look at the young prospects and it would be unwise to smell rat in the selection.

"I agreed that naming two wicketkeepers for one-day series is a bit unusual. But what we thought that Khaled Mashud has been serving the team for long and the time has come to find a backup. And the stage is perfect if we want to make any experiment," explained Faruque.

"The circumstances have changed after rearrangement of the schedule that's why we picked up Raj (Abdur Razzak). We had a plan to include him after the Kenya tour as we have seen spinners dominating the A team series in Zimbabwe," he added.

Faruque praised Bangladesh A's performance in Zimbabwe and said that he was delighted by the performance of out-of-favour Tushar Imran and young Mehrab Hossain Jr.

"We overlooked Tushar (Imran) just for team combination and to have a look at the young guys. I am really impressed by the performance of Mehrab. I think Mehrab has the quality to become a good Test player, that's why we will definitely try him first in the Test squad," he added.

Bangladesh will leave Dhaka on July 23 to play a five-match one-day series against Zimbabwe before visiting Kenya to play three one-day internationals.

SQUAD
Habibul Bashar (captain), Shahriar Nafees, Javed Omar, Rajin Saleh, Mohammad Ashraful, Aftab Ahmed, Alok Kapali, Mohammad Rafique, Khaled Mashud, Mashrafee Bin Mortuza, Syed Rasel, Shahadat Hossain, Mushfiqur Rahim, Forhad Reza, Sakib Al Hasan and Abdur Razzak.