The President of Bangladesh board wants clarity over the future of senior players!

The President of the Bangladesh Cricket, Mr. Nazmul Hasan wants the senior cricketers of Bangladesh to take a call on their future. He set a roadmap for the growth of Bangladesh in test cricket and if the senior players don’t decide fast, it might affect the growth. Tamim Iqbal, Shakib al Hasan, Mahmudullah and Mushfiqur Rahim are the pillars of Bangladesh cricket but at this moment, their future in test cricket looks dim. Mahmudullah decided to quit test cricket already, there’s no clarity on Mushfiqur and Tamim Iqbal wants to focus on T20 cricket being part of the test side. When it comes to Shakib, the legendary all-rounder wants to play every format of the game but every time something or the other comes and ruins his plan.

“Our problem is that we don't want anyone to feel bad and we want them to quit with a smiling face. They should be able to make their own decisions and the sooner the better. But a time will come if they cannot take any decision, then we will have to decide”, said Nazmul. He added, “Mahmudullah already left Test cricket while Tamim is not playing T20s and there is Mushfiqur, who is playing at the moment and we will know about his plans soon. It's better to sit with the board instead of the media because then we can have some time to prepare substitutes. In other countries, it happens in this manner but in our country that is not the case but we hope it will be the case in future”.

Speaking about Shakib, the President said, “Shakib's case is different from the other seniors and talking about him is difficult. Everyone wants him in every format but getting him is difficult. Actually, we are not sure what he will play and what he won't because when I talk with him, it seems he wants to play in each format but when there is a game around suddenly he has problems and those are genuine problems and so you cannot deny that. So it is difficult to tell anything about him”.

The Captain of the board also wants the players of the national team to play in domestic cricket. The trend says that the team always struggles in the second, third and following tests after a good start. It has been the same against Pakistan, New Zealand and recently against South Africa. The team needs to focus on test cricket and should bat for longer hours to be mentally ready for test cricket is what the President believes.

“They (coaching staff) are yet to find out why this is happening but what they feel is that a lot of our players don't have the mindset to play 10 days of cricket at a stretch and we have to work on it. The problem is that those who play Test cricket are not taking part in the domestic longer-version cricket and so they don't have the habit of playing for a long time. Now with the international schedule we have, there is hardly any gap, and so even if we want, we cannot make them play in domestic cricket, otherwise we have to stop domestic cricket”, is what the President said.