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Nazmul Hassan wants the likes of Tamim, Rahim, Shakib and Mahmudullah to decide about their futures and not force the team management to take any decisions.
Bangladesh Cricket Board president Nazmul Hasan has revealed the players are struggling to perform in Test cricket because they haven’t adopted the right mindset. Bangladesh, in the recent past, has managed to challenge Pakistan, New Zealand and South Africa in the opening Test but fell flat as the series progressed.
Ahead of the home Test series against Sri Lanka, Hassan along with other board members met with the team management. “We wanted to know about their assessment of the South Africa tour. Test captain Mominul was there as he is going to leave for Chattogram tonight. I spoke with him (Mominul) along with other members of the coaching staff. I just had an idea about their strategy and plan,” Hassan said.
“I wanted to know why we are performing like this in Tests. The coaching staff was giving me examples of four to five Tests and they feel that we can compete in the opening Test but we surrender in the second Test. It happened against Pakistan at home while it was the same in New Zealand and South Africa.
“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.”
The BCB president also stressed that the senior players need to make up their minds and speak to the board officials about their futures.
Tamim Iqbal, Shakib al Hasan, Mahmudullah and Mushfiqur Rahim are in the national side but with age not on their side, they are looking at ways to increase their playing careers. Mahmudullah has already decided not to take part in T20 cricket for six months. Though those six months ended in April, he’s yet to make any official announcements about his future plans. He also decided to retire from Test cricket to prolong his limited-overs career.
“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,” Hasan said. “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.
“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.
“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.
“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.”
