Seven Bangladesh players who are in the draft of the Lanka Premier league won’t be available for the initial phase of the competition due to national duties.
The tournament is slated to be played between July 30 to August 22 while Bangladesh are scheduled to host Australia for a five-match series between August 2 to August 8 which will be followed by series against New Zealand and England at home.
The likes of Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal, Mahmudullah, Mehidy Hasan, Taskin Ahmed, Liton Das and Soumya Sarkar are the players in the LPL draft.
''They (Bangladeshi cricketers) will not be available from the beginning of LPL as we have series against Australia,'' BCB cricket operation chairman Akram Khan confirmed Cricbuzz on Saturday.
''We also have other series lined up but in between, we have some time and they can go at that point and play in the LPL,'' he said.
Akram further added that the above mentioned players have said that they are available for selection across all formats.
''All the cricketers are ready to take part across format and they have informed national duty is their first preference,'' said Akram. ''They have said that if they are picked and if they can manage to have time to play in LPL they will play there but not at the expense of skipping any national duty,'' he said.