Liton Das and Soumya Sarkar reveal the story behind their jersey numbers

Soumya Sarkar and Liton Das are two young cricketers from the current Bangladesh squad. The two players are likely to carry the legacy of Bangladesh once their seniors retire from the game. As they try and make in the international arena, the two players have revealed how their jersey number came to be.

As far as Liton Das is concerned, his jersey number is 16. But, it wasn’t always the case and the player actually wanted something else. During the interaction, Das revealed that his original choice for a jersey number was, ’02’. However, it was because of a senior player that he could not have it. Mashrafe Mortaza, the former Bangladesh ODI captain, has worn the jersey with the number ’02’ on its back.

Das revealed the main reason why he wanted to have the jersey with ’02’ on its back. “When I first played in domestic cricket, my jersey No was 02. And there was a reason behind this. The reason is, when I played my first game with a cricket ball, I scored two runs. So I chose two as my jersey No,” said Liton Das as reported by Cricfrenzy.

I will hold on to No. 16 jersey as long as I play cricket: Liton Das

Furthermore, Das also said that when he got his chance to wear the jersey with ’02’ in the BPL, he was once again not been given the opportunity. This happened because Mortaza was in his BPL team as well. The two played for the Comilla franchise in the BPL.

Finally, he decided to wear the jersey number 19 in the T20 league. “I, therefore, asked my mother what I will wear, she told me to wear whatever I like. I then chose 19 for BPL”, said Liton.

But his love affair with the number ’02’ didn’t stop. Back when he played in the domestic cricket for Abahani Limited, he would go to back his jersey with number 2. With this, he kept switching between something and ’02’ whenever he played in a team with or without Mashrafe Mortaza. Finally, Liton stopped with 16. He chose the number as it was his birth date.

“Later I decided that since my birthday is on the 16th, my jersey number will be 16. And that’s fixed now and I will hold on to it as long as I play cricket,” he pointed out.

Soumya Sarkar got his lucky jersey number quite easily. While being at the Bangladesh Krira Shikkha Protishtan (BKSP), his credit number was 459. He simply cut 4 and kept ’59’ as his jersey number.

“My credit number at BKSP was 459. Initially, I preferred No 459 but it’s difficult to put three digits in a jersey. So I skipped 4 and took the last two digits (59), that is why my jersey No is 59,” Soumya said.