Hip injury rules Litton Das out of UAE tri-series

"Litton Das came to us with a right hip joint complain," Bangladesh team physio Bayezid Islam Khan said soon after the toss, where Hridoy had mentioned "an injury" when asked about Litton's absence.

"We did an MRI report which told us something was wrong. Litton still tried to take a fitness test today but couldn't match the benchmark, so he is not available for this series."

Litton, who had been appointed the full-time ODI captain in July, has had injury issues in recent months and even missed the Zimbabwe tour in July. More recently, he was the Player of the Match in the drawn one-off Test against Afghanistan in Abu Dhabi after scoring 53 and 102 and taking eight catches.

Mehidy Hasan Miraz also missing the tri-series opener because of a fever, which he has been suffering from "for the last three days", Bayezid said. This is the first instance of both Litton and Mehidy missing an ODI for Bangladesh since September 2023.

Bangladesh are also without quick bowler Nahid Rana, who has been out of action since mid-July because of a side strain. The most recent update on Rana was that he was in Perth for a check-up and was expected to return to competitive cricket later this month.

Afghanistan are the third team in the tri-series.