Soumya Sarkar recalled after five years as Bangladesh pick their Darwin squad
Bangladesh have brought Soumya Sarkar back for their first Test in Australia since 2003, with a growing injury list forcing five changes to the side.
Jul 27, 2026
Soumya Sarkar last batted in a Test match in February 2021. On 13 August, at 33, he could be walking out in Darwin against Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood. Bangladesh have named a 15-man squad for the first Test of their tour of Australia, and the left-hander’s recall after five and a half years away is the headline in a selection shaped almost entirely by who was not available.
Five changes, and most of them were forced
The injury list did the bulk of the selecting. Nahid Rana, comfortably Bangladesh’s most dangerous quick this year, is out of both Tests with a grade two side strain that needs six to eight weeks of rehabilitation. Shoriful Islam has a hamstring problem and will not be considered until a fitness check in the middle of August. Litton Das, the first-choice wicketkeeper, has a calf injury on a similar timeline.
That left one genuine selection call, and the selectors made it. Mahmudul Hasan Joy has been dropped after four single-digit scores in his past six Test innings. Jaker Ali comes in to keep wicket having not played international cricket since November. Musfik Hasan, an uncapped 23-year-old seamer from Rangpur, is in line for a debut on a surface that should suit him. Mehidy Hasan Miraz returns as vice-captain and Taskin Ahmed comes back into the attack.
Why Soumya, and why now
Nobody is pretending this is a weight-of-runs recall. Soumya has 831 runs at 28 from 16 Tests, with a single hundred, the 149 he made at Hamilton in 2019 in a partnership of 235 with Mahmudullah. He has spent the years since as a white-ball player.
What he has that the alternatives do not is Australian mileage. Soumya has played more international cricket in Australia than any other active Bangladesh batter, and he was in the side that beat Australia by 20 runs in Dhaka in 2017. For a team touring a country where the bounce is the first thing that undoes visiting batters, a top-order player who has already faced it counts for something. Whether that translates into runs against a full-strength Australian attack is a different question.
Australia have not held anybody back
Cummins, Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon are all back from injury for the two-Test series, and Bangladesh captain Najmul Hossain Shanto has treated that as a compliment rather than a threat.
“Normally, I have never seen anything like this before in Bangladesh cricket. When teams play against us, there are usually a lot of experiments,” Shanto said. “I would say this is an achievement for our team. Because they have brought such a team, it is a very big opportunity for us to see how well we can play cricket against them.”
Both Tests carry World Test Championship points in the 2025-27 cycle, which Australia currently lead. A result in Darwin would matter a good deal more to the visitors than the percentage column suggests.
The schedule
Bangladesh fly out on 1 August and play a three-day warm-up against a Cricket Australia XI in Darwin from 6 to 8 August. The first Test starts at Marrara Cricket Ground on 13 August, the second at the Great Barrier Reef Arena in Mackay on 22 August. It is Bangladesh’s first Test series in Australia since 2003, when they played at Darwin and Cairns and lost both Tests. That gap tells its own story about how rarely the fixture has been made.
Squad: Najmul Hossain Shanto (c), Mehidy Hasan Miraz (vc), Soumya Sarkar, Shadman Islam, Tanzid Hasan Tamim, Mominul Haque, Mushfiqur Rahim, Amite Hasan, Jaker Ali Anik, Taijul Islam, Taskin Ahmed, Hasan Mahmud, Syed Khaled Ahmed, Ebadot Hossain Chowdhury, Musfik Hasan.