Fatigue puts Mustafizur county stint in doubt

Sussex coach Mark Davis is confident of securing the services of Mustafizur Rahman this summer, despite reports in Bangladesh suggesting that he may skip the county stint.

"We can't confirm anything at the moment but I am confident he will still be joining us," Davis told The Argus. "He is probably the best bowler in the world at the moment so we're very excited about him coming and we should know for sure what's going on in the next couple of weeks."

In March, Sussex announced that Mustafizur will be their second overseas player and will participate in the NatWest T20 Blast and the Royal London One-day Cup in the 2016 season. But since the announcement, Mustafizur's side strain kept him out of the majority of Bangladesh's Asia Cup and World T20 campaigns before he played in the first ten IPL matches for Sunrisers Hyderabad, taking 13 wickets at 17.61, with an economy rate of 6.18.

ESPNcricinfo has since learned from multiple sources that Mustafizur has spoken to those close to him of his tiredness from playing continuously in the IPL. While the BCB has said that they have "agreed in principle" to his deal with Sussex, they have in the past considered saving him from playing in overseas leagues. In January, they considered withholding him from the PSL. As it happened, he was ruled out of the PSL by a shoulder injury he picked up during Bangladesh's tour of Zimbabwe.

On May 5, BCB's cricket operations chairman Akram Khan said that the decision lay with Mustafizur, and nothing had been finalised as yet. "A decision is still pending on Mustafizur's participation in county cricket this season but then again it is his personal decision, we can only make suggestions," he said.

Mustafizur's stint at Sussex could already be delayed because Sunrisers are likely to play in the knockout stages of the IPL, which could keep Mustafizur in India until the end of May.