No Pakistani will feature in Asia XI for the Bangladesh T20Is

The BCCI Joint Secretary Jayesh George has stated that Pakistan's players won't get invited to be part of the Asia XI team to take on the World XI team in March 2020. The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) had announced in July that two T20I matches will be played to commemorate the hundredth birth anniversary of Bangladesh's first-ever president, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Speaking to news agency IANS in an interview, George shed light regarding the Pakistani players' participation. He also revealed that BCCI president Sourav Ganguly will pick 5 players from India to represent Asia XI.

What we are aware of is that there will be no Pakistan players in the Asia XI. That is what the message is, so, there is no question of both countries coming together or picking one over the other. Sourav Ganguly will decide the five players who will be a part of the Asia XI.

Both the T20I matches have got scheduled to take place in Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur, Bangladesh between March 18 and March 21, 2020. While ICC is said to have given the international status for the two clashes, the former also mentioned it is only a one-off event where such matches will get permission. The squads for both Asia XI and World XI are yet to get announced. As per the earlier reports, BCB wanted BCCI to send the likes of MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and Rohit Sharma for the event. It will be intriguing to see which players get picked for the 2 games in Bangladesh as India plays South Africa in a series in close proximity to these T20s.