Mashud is one of the five cricketers that the Faruque Ahmed-led selection panel have recalled for the first Test series after one year. The selectors have dropped Aftab Ahmed, Tamim Iqbal, Abdur Razzak, Forhad Reza and wicketkeeper Mushfiqur Rahim, who are currently playing in the three-match one-day series. The other four players recalled in the Test squad are Tushar Imran, Mehrab Hossain, Enamul Haque and Rajin Saleh.

Young all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan, who already impressed many with his consistent performance in the one-day cricket, and left-handed opener Mehrab Hossain are the only players in the squad who are yet to make their Test debut.

Habibul Bashar is retained as captain while Mohammad Ashraful, who will take over as one-day skipper from Bashar after the home series against India, has been made his deputy for the Test series as well, which starts with the first match at Chittagong from May 18. The second and final Test will be held at Mirpur from May 25.

"We had to go through an extensive discussion before picking the squad because we are going to play Test cricket after a long gap. What we tried to do was to emphasise on experience for the Test series," said chief selector Faruque.

"We kept faith on Mashud because he is still the number one 'keeper and you all know how important an area it is in the Test cricket. His batting might not be suited for the shorter version, but he can still be very handy for the longer version. On the other hand, Mushfiq is a promising 'keeper but he has a long way to go to establish himself as good behind the stumps," the former skipper added.

Bangladesh played their last Test match against Australia at home in April 2006 where opener Nafis Iqbal, Alok Kapali and Aftab Ahmed were in the squad but this time they were not considered.

Inform middle-order batsman Tushar Imran, who played only four Tests, however got a deserving recall after a long time.

"We thought that Tushar could be a good middle-order option than Aftab as he played a number of four-day matches recently and performed well against good opponents like England A,” said the chief selector.

Tushar played his last Test match against Sri Lanka in Colombo in September 2005.

He also said that Rajin, who was non-playing member of the World Cup, was picked for his experience. Rajin has played 17 Tests.

Faruque defended the decision of picking only three seam bowlers in Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, Shahadat Hossain and Syed Rasel.

"Considering the conditions we have decided to go with three pacers and we picked up Enamul in place of Razzak because we thought that he would be more effective in the longer-version as he has the variation in his bowling. Enamul also played a number of first-class matches for last one year and looked effective," he said.

Faruque also believed that Mehrab is a good player in longer-version that's why he was picked ahead of out-of-form opener Nafis Iqbal.

SQUAD
Habibul Bashar (captain), Mohammad Ashraful (vice-captain), Javed Omar, Shahriar Nafees, Shakib Al Hasan, Rajin Saleh, Tushar Imran, Khaled Mashud (wicketkeeper), Mohammad Rafique, Enamul Haque, Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, Shahadat Hossain, Syed Rasel and Mehrab Hossain.