A file photo shows Bangladesh captain Sakib al Hasan reacting during a training session at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium. — BCB photo
Reluctance of playing Tests was the main reason behind Sakib al Hasan’s showing desire of giving up captaincy, Bangladesh Cricket Board president Nazmul Hasan claimed on Wednesday saying that the player was yet to discuss the matter directly with the board.
Bangladesh’s Test and Twenty20 skipper Sakib twice, on August 30 before the lone Afghanistan Test, and on September 9 after suffering a humiliating defeat in the match, told media about not being interested to carry on as a captain.
Sakib, however, didn’t discuss the matter with Nazmul directly, which led the BCB chief to believe that the all-rounder’s unwillingness to play in the longest format could be the main reason behind his statements.
‘We have noticed that he didn’t have much interest in Tests for some time, especially you have seen that when we were touring foreign countries he wants to have break during the Tests,’ Nazmul told reporters in Mirpur.
‘Naturally he might have less interest. But we never heard that he has less interest in captaincy.
‘If he is skipper then he has to play. If you are not skipper then you can skip. That’s why naturally the captaincy issue arose,’ he added.
In the past, Sakib had opted to skip a two-match Test series against South Africa in September, 2017 but the board handed him the Test leadership later in December that year.
Sakib also missed another foreign Test series in early 2018, this time against the Kiwis in New Zealand as he was recovering from his finger injury.
Bangladesh were unable to survive 18.3 overs in the final session of the final day against Afghanistan on Monday and Sakib took some blame on himself for the defeat.
The home side had high hopes on Sakib, the unbeaten overnight batsman, who also survived the 13 balls of play in the post-lunch session but got out off the first ball when play resumed in late afternoon.
‘I think it will be best for me if I don’t continue captaincy. It will be good for my cricket if I think about myself individually. And if have to continue doing captaincy, of course I need to discuss a lot of things,’ Sakib said after the 224-run loss.
Nazmul also felt that maybe a humiliating loss against a novice Test team like Afghanistan made the ace all-rounder put forward such statements, as he generalised Bangladeshi cricketers as very ‘emotional’.
‘If he [Sakib] tells us, we will formally tell you. May be he is sad. He didn’t play in last few Tests. Suddenly they lost to Afghanistan. Our boys are emotional. I will speak with him once things got calm,’ he said.
Nazmul, however discouraged talking more about this issue as Bangladesh are soon to begin a T20 tri-nation against Afghanistan and Zimbabwe and wanted to discuss about it only if Sakib formally brings up the topic.
‘As there is a series going on, I think we shouldn’t talk about the issue. If he turns up the subject, then definitely we will discuss,’ Nazmul said.
Source: New Age.
