BCB President requests clarity from senior players on their future plans

Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hassan felt the emergence of T20 cricket has meant that the senior cricketers are no longer focussing on all formats. The discussion recently started with the Bangladesh team director Khaled Mahmud lashing out at Mustafizur Rahman for focussing on limited-overs cricket despite being just 26 years old.

Bangladesh haven’t put out their best XI in recent times in different formats and that has been a major reason behind their dismal show. Tamim Iqbal hasn’t been part of the T20I set-up in recent times while Mahmudullah has retired from Test cricket which brings the equation to the other two seniors, Mushfiqur Rahim and Shakib Al Hasan, whose futures are yet to be known.

We don’t want anyone to feel bad, we want to them quit with a smiling face: Nazmul Hassan

Nazmul Hassan mentioned how T20 cricket has impacted the players in focussing on the limited-overs format and in a way affecting the needs of the Test side. He added that the Bangladesh board has been kind to the players in terms of taking their decisions to ensure that the players can move on with smiles. He concluded that if the senior players do prolong about making a decision on their careers, then the board will decide it for them.

“As far as seniors are concerned, if you see the world, you will see a lot of things have changed since the inception of T20 cricket. If you put all your focus on T20 cricket, considering you can play for a long period of time as the time span of the game is short, certainly it can hamper other formats and lot of players are moving away from Test cricket to put their focus on T20s,” Nazmul Hassan was quoted as saying by Cricbuzz.

“Our problem is that we don’t want anyone to feel bad and we want to them quit with a smiling face. They should be able to take their own decision and the sooner the better. But a time will come if they cannot take any decision, then we will have to decide,” he added.