Home ›› 26 Feb 2023 ›› Sport
England National Cricket team started training at the National Academy Ground in Dhaka on Saturday as they now prepare for their upcoming series against Bangladesh, starting March 1.
On the same day, Bangladesh Cricket Board President Nazmul Hassan brought forward the split between Bangladesh One-Day International skipper Tamim Iqbal and Bangladesh Test and Twenty20 International skipper Shakib Al Hasan in an interview with an online cricket outlet.
England arrived in Bangladesh on Friday and trained in the morning. Their squad includes Dawid Malan and Moeen Ali, both of whom played in the recently-concluded ninth edition of the Bangladesh Premier League, where they both played for Khulna. Other than that, skipper Jos Buttler and Jofra Archer also have BPL experience.
Despite the English side training in Dhaka for the first time since 2016, the day lit up when the BCB president disclosed an ongoing rift between Tamim and Shakib.
The duo, who were known as best friends in the cricketing fraternity for a long time, have seemingly fallen out of favour with each other, which could be sensed in several recent series on the field.
Nazmul’s words described a clear dispute, adding to him tagging the Tigers’ dressing room as ‘not healthy’.
“This is not a healthy dressing room, this I can guarantee you. This thing (rift between Shakib and Tamim), it’s not that I have not tried to sort it out. I have spoken with both of them and I felt that it is not easy to settle the issues (between them) at the moment. This is my observation.
“Both of them have been given one message - we don’t know what is going on between you, but during a game or series that you are playing, these differences cannot come out. Both of them assured that it won’t be there during the game,” he told Cricbuzz.
The BCB president also termed ‘grouping’ as the biggest problem for Bangladesh at the moment.
“The biggest problem for Bangladesh cricket at the moment is this grouping and that is the reality. I don’t have a problem with anything else. I am only scared about this grouping and I only came to know about it in recent times. We have to put an end to it if we want to see a good future because one thing everyone needs to understand is that there is no scope for grouping,” he said in that interview.
With Chandika Hathurusinghe back at the helm, the issues regarding rifts don’t end as the Sri Lankan coach reportedly ended his first term as the Bangladesh head coach, which was from 2014 to 2017, on bad terms with the senior players such as Tamim and Mushfiqur Rahim.
And Nazmul accepted that it will be difficult for him to deal with the senior cricketers.
“I think it will be difficult. The problem with our players is that they are not telling us anything by themselves about their future. For Hathurusingha, it will be a big challenge (both for him as well as for seniors) because I know one thing that if a senior doesn’t perform, Hathurusingha won’t keep him in the team,” the BCB President said while asked about the distance between the Lankan coach and senior cricketers in the interview.
In his final days as head coach, Hathurusinghe opted to keep Mushfiq out of keeping duties, something the batter has previously said that helps him in batting.
Nazmul insisted that Hathurusinghe’s preference this time around is the Tigers’ fielding and that Mushfiq may have to improve keeping wickets if he wants to keep doing it.
“I was so upset for Mushfiqur because for the last one and a half years, he was not scoring runs. I have always said that Mushfiqur is our best batter. I still feel he will be able to score runs but the issue is wicket-keeping. If he’s not keeping, then questions will be raised regarding his fielding and if he does keep, he will have to improve a bit,” he said regarding the matter.
