Mushfiqur Rahim will miss Bangladesh's T20I series against Australia next month after he was unable to join the rest of the squad for a ten-day quarantine in Dhaka.
The quarantine was originally scheduled to begin on July 22. Later it was brought till July 20. Till that date no team could reach Dhaka as Bangladesh was on tour of Zimbabwe and Australia was on tour of West Indies. So BCB and CA agreed that as long as their players stay inside a safe bio-bubble - Bangladesh in Harare and Australia in Gros Islet and Bridgetown - this can count towards their quarantine time in Dhaka.
As a result, the BCB approached Rahim and asked him to stay back in Zimbabwe for the entire duration of the tour. Initially, he was supposed to return home after the end of the ODI leg. But, complications arose when Rahim's parents fell ill and had to go home early. In the end, he was unable to meet the deadline for the quarantine due to family commitments and when he reported on July 22, he was told it would not work.
"Mushfiqur (Rahim) wanted to play the series," said BCB's cricket operations president Akram Khan, "but he missed the quarantine for a few days." Her parents are ill, so she had to skip the Zimbabwe tour. But the [10-day] quarantine is part of our agreement with Cricket Australia, so we couldn't include that. They did not agree to enter the quarantine two days after Mushfiqur began. It's disappointing but not much can be done about these things."
The rest of Bangladesh players will travel directly from the airport to the hotel upon their arrival in Dhaka from Harare on July 27. Match officers, liaison officers, hotel staff and drivers are among those who have already gone into mandatory hotel quarantine. Bangladesh and Australia will play five T20Is from August 3 to 9. The hosts are already without Tamim Iqbal, who is battling a knee injury and has been out of competitive cricket for at least eight weeks.