Rivalry with Buttler no problem for Kieswetter

Kieswetter and Buttler have spent much of their young careers vying with each other for selection, having both come through the Somerset ranks as exciting wicketkeeper-batsmen.

With both men harbouring international ambitions, and a brief experiment of splitting the keeping job between formats ultimately satisfying neither, it soon became clear that one would have to leave Taunton.

That decision was made at the end of last season when Somerset’s apparent faith in 26-year-old Kieswetter saw Buttler move to Lancashire.

England’s selectors, faced with the same conundrum, threw their weight behind the younger man with Buttler, 23, their No 1 gloveman in limited-overs cricket.

But the pair will be sharing practice sessions once again in Chittagong after Kieswetter was recalled from a year-long England exile to replace the injured Luke Wright.

Although ostensibly in as batting cover, Kieswetter will also be pitting his skills against a familiar figure in keeping drills.

“I think I’m here to challenge the batters and to challenge Jos,” he said. “In professional sport, especially international sport, you can’t really rest on your laurels.

“(We’re) two good friends and when you get into business or the professional side of life it makes friendship a bit tricky.

“But it hasn’t pushed us away, we still remain quite close and we’re both pretty happy with the way it has turned out.

“Like any club when you have two international-quality players, both want to be playing. The way it went was that Jos made that decision and rightfully so. We all wish him the best.”

Kieswetter will have had just a couple of full practice sessions to persuade coach Ashley Giles he is worthy of a place against Sri Lanka tomorrow.

Alex Hales is under-performing, but has enough credit in the bank, meaning Kieswetter’s best hope would be for England to sacrifice a seamer and slot in at seven as a late-order power-hitter.