Bangladesh Cricket Board has dropped Tamim Iqbal from their twenty20 international plans as there was no place for the left-handed opener in the national contract for the shortest version of the game.
Tamim said in a video message posted from his verified Facebook page on Wednesday that he is unavailable for the T20 World Cup coming up later this year as he thinks it is not fair to replace someone younger who has been playing in the team for the past few series instead of him. He also made it clear that he is not retiring from the 20-over game.
But BCB is not interested in seeing Tamim in this format as they released the new list of nationally contracted players from May to December this year.
The board has offered the contract to a total of 24 cricketers. Unlike the previous year, BCB is penning the contracts based on the game format, not the ball colour.
Mushfiqur Rahim, Shakib Al Hasan, Liton Kumar Das, Taskin Ahmed, and Shoriful Islam have been drafted for all three formats that are Test, one-day internationals, and T20Is.
Tamim Iqbal, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, and Taijul Islam have been given contracts for only Test and ODI.
Mominul Haque, Abu Jayed Chowdhury Rahi, Najmul Hossain Shanto, Shadman Islam, Saif Hassan, and Ebadot Hossain are on the contract for only Test matches.
Mahmudullah, who received some farewell from his teammates in the solitary Test against Zimbabwe where he scored his career-best 150* runs and indicated that he will not play Test matches anymore, is also not in the red-ball plans of BCB as he was not offered a Test contract.
Mahmudullah, Mustafizur Rahman, Saif Uddin, and Afif Hossain have been picked for the ODI and T20I contracts.
Soumya Sarkar is placed only in the T20I category, so are Mohammad Naim, Shak Mahedi Hasan, Nurul Hasan Sohan, Nasum Ahmed, and Shamim Hossain.
Mohammad Mithun and Nayeem Hasan lost their place in the national contract, whilst Shanto, part of both red and white ball contracts in the previous tenure, has now been drafted only for Tests.
Taskin made a good comeback to all formats where he was out of the national contract in the previous tenure.
BCB also informed that the activities for the upcoming election are already in motion as the election commission was formed in Wednesday's meeting.
The election commissioners are-
