Mashrafe's first-class return delayed by illness

Mashrafe Mortaza's planned return to first-class cricket has been delayed after he was admitted to a Dhaka hospital on Friday morning with dengue fever.

Mashrafe was supposed to travel to Khulna on Friday to play the division side's third round match in the National Cricket League against Rangpur Division but at around 2:30am, he was taken to Apollo Hospital in Dhaka with high fever. His son Sahel has also been suffering from fever over the last few days.

Mashrafe, whose previous international game was in mid-July, has been training hard to get back into competitive cricket and has also expressed optimism about a return to Test cricket, a format he last played in 2009. He would have had to wait till the Bangladesh Premier League in mid-November for his next assignment but decided to play at least two matches in the NCL this season. His previous first-class appearance was in January 2014.