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Bangladesh Cricket Board has once again made Shakib Al Hasan the Test captain of Bangladesh after Mominul Haque expressed his desire to step down.
BCB President Nazmul Hassan told the media after the board directors meeting at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium on Thursday that Shakib will lead the Test squad once again, coming into effect from the upcoming West Indies tour.
“Shakib Al Hasan is our Test captain, Liton Das is the vice-captain. They will continue until the further announcement,” Nazmul told the reporters.
This will be Shakib’s third tenure as Test captain. Previously, he led the Bangladesh Test team twice, but he had to step down due to off-the-field issues both time.
Shakib was first made Test captain in the second Test of the two-match series against West Indies in Granada after Mashrafe Bin Mortaza was ruled out due to injury.
Gradually, Shakib found Tamim Iqbal as his deputy, and they both were confirmed as captain and vice-captain of the national team for 2011, but they could not survive their entire span.
On September 5, Both Shakib and Tamim were relieved of their duties as captain and vice-captain due to a lack of leadership quality, the then media committee chairman of BCB Jalal Younus told AFP.
“Shakib Al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal have been relieved of captaincy and vice-captaincy as their leadership was not satisfactory. They failed to lead the side during the tour. There are reports of indiscipline against Shakib. In certain areas, Tamim breached discipline. He argued with the head coach,” he said that time.
Shakib and Tamim were replaced by Mushfiqur Rahim and Mahmudullah. Ironically, Stuart Law was the head coach at that time, and now his name was approved as the head coach of the Bangladesh U-19 team in the same board meeting, where Shakib was reappointed as Test captain.
After 2011, Shakib was made Test captain again in 2017 when Mushfiqur Rahim was stripped of captaincy after a dismal South Africa tour. The all-rounder was the T20 captain at that time, and later on, he was made the captain for the longer version, though he was showing his disinterest in Test cricket at that time.
After being appointed Test captain for the second time, he missed the initial few matches due to injury and led Bangladesh in five Tests before being banned for a year.
In his second tenure as captain, Bangladesh were shambolic in the first Test against West Indies, where they were all-out for just 43 runs in the first innings. The Tigers lost both the Test matches, but at home they won both. But the nadir or Bangladesh’s cricket history came under Shakib’s captaincy when his team lost to Afghanistan at Chattogram, where Shakib led the downfall by chasing a way outside of the off-stump delivery from Zahir Khan and got out on the final day when the team needed him to survive the final hours.
The BCB was almost compelled to make Shakib captain again despite the integrity issue as there were no alternatives, said Nazmul.
“Shakib’s ban was different. It was not like others (Smith or Warner). We have decided after considering everything,” he told the media.
Even before the South Africa series, Shakib said that he wanted a break from cricket, but within a few months, he has been made Test captain one more time. Nazmul believes that he will be available in all formats for Bangladesh except the Zimbabwe series.
“I have talked to him, and many more persons have talked to him (regarding availability). What he told me is that he will play in the West Indies series, and after that, there is a series in Zimbabwe in which he is not sure (about playing). But after that, he will play in all formats and all the series for Bangladesh,” assured the BCB president.
“It was one of the criteria for us before appointing him as the Test captain, and Shakib said he will play. With immediate effect, he is the Test captain but it is difficult to tell how long he will carry on,” added Nazmul.
Liton was made vice-captain. He was earlier roped in as captain in a T20I match against New Zealand. Probably the wicketkeeper-batsman reaped the prize for his consistent performance with the bat which put him in 12th place in the ICC Test batsman’s rankings.
