Mustafizur's recovery expected to take a month

Bangladesh's strength and conditioning coach Mario Villavarayan has said that it will take Mustafizur Rahman one month to recover from the hamstring and ankle injuries he picked up during IPL 2016. Villavarayan said that his improvement will be assessed weekly.

"Ideal [time to be fully fit] would be one month," Villavarayan said. "But we will see how he does this week and take it from there. As of today, there's marginal improvement. It was a long season for him, so we are working on him. We assessed him yesterday and he has improved, and we will assess him again next week and take it from there. He has responded well."

Mustafizur, who has already missed four Royal One-Day London Cup and five NatWest T20 Blast matches for Sussex, will be unavailable for another six T20s and rest of the group stage matches of the one-day tournament. He is expected to be available for three T20 games in the end of July, and will be available for the latter stages of both competitions if Sussex qualify.

Last month, Mustafizur had informed those close to him of the fatigue he was suffering after playing continuously in the IPL.

This prompted Sussex to give him some time off from his contract, at least until June 10, as well as abandon ambitions for him also to play some Championship cricket during his stay.

Sussex have remained patient throughout and are hoping to have further conversations with Bangladesh representatives early next week. They have covered Mustafizur's absence by extending the contract of David Wiese, but he is due to be with Barbados Tridents at the Caribbean Premier League by the end of the month, leaving Sussex with a potentially tricky period unless Mustafizur feels fit enough to begin his education in English conditions slightly earlier.

Last week, Bangladesh's physio Bayjidul Islam had said that he would be assessed for two weeks before any decision is taken on his stint with Sussex.