Despite injuries, Simmons rallies behind Bangladesh's quicks to step up in Pakistan

With Mustafizur Rahman and Taskin Ahmed unavailable due to injury for Bangladesh's T20I series against Pakistan starting Wednesday, their head coach Phil Simmons expects the rest of the pace attack to step up.

Taskin is suffering from an ankle injury that has kept him out of competitive cricket for the last two months, while Mustafizur picked up a thumb injury in his last IPL 2025 game for Delhi Capitals last week.

"You miss your senior seamers," Simmons said on the sidelines of Bangladesh's training session in Lahore on Monday evening. "As we saw, how Fizz (Mustafizur) was bowling in the IPL then. We will miss him. It is also a chance for somebody to take his place in this series. Let's hope one of the bowlers decide that he wants to fill in for Fizz in this series. Our bowling is usually our stronger suit in this format. But having two senior bowlers, Taskin and Fizz, out, then it balances off."

Bangladesh's selectors have called up Khaled Ahmed to replace Mustafizur, although they didn't pick a replacement for Nahid Rana who has opted out of the tour due to personal reasons. Apart from Khaled, Bangladesh have Tanzim Hasan, Hasan Mahmud and Shoriful Islam in the squad. They've also added Mehidy Hasan Miraz to replace the injured Soumya Sarkar, in a bid to bolster their bowling attack.

Simmons said that the team mood is upbeat despite the 2-1 defeat against UAE and expects the side to bounce back in Lahore to win the three-match series.

"It was difficult to lose the series in UAE, but then sometimes that lifts you up. Our morale has been great, so we are hopeful (the result in UAE) will lift us up," he said. "I think there's always a great chance of winning the series. People keep saying Pakistan are not playing well. Again, it is about what happens on the day. We have a good chance of winning the series here. We are working hard very hard to try to improve in all aspects. Hopefully we get better in this series."

Simmons also welcomed new fast-bowling coach Shaun Tait into the setup. Tait joined the side in Lahore for his first assignment after being given the appointment for two years. Simmons said that he will get a fair understanding of how the Pakistan players performed in the PSL as both Tait and Mushtaq Ahmed, Bangladesh's spin bowling coach, worked in the tournament with Karachi Kings and Peshawar Zalmi, respectively.

"I think he [Tait] will be brilliant not just for the bowlers, but for the team in general. We will assess the situation here. Mushy was in the PSL right through so we will get information from him and make our decisions," Simmons added.

Despite the loss of experienced players in the fast-bowling front, Bangladesh are still banking on their seamers to bring them a good result in Pakistan. They struggled against the UAE big-hitters last week, struggling to grip the ball in the Sharjah dew. The onus will now be on Shoriful as he is the senior among the bowling group and looked to be among the better Bangladesh seamers in the UAE.

Bangladesh play the first match against Pakistan on May 28, followed by matches on May 30 and June 1. All matches will be played at the Gaddafi Stadium.