It's BCB president who phoned Tamim

In his bombshell disclosure on Wednesday afternoon, national cricket team opener Tamim Iqbal said he received a phone call from a top official of Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) and had a heated argument with him days before the announcement of the World Cup team.

Multiple sources confirmed that the man on the other side of the phone was none other than BCB president Nazmul Hassan Papon.

However, the BCB boss could not be reached despite repeated attempts.

In his video message, Tamim said, “A person from the top of the cricket board phoned me. He is deeply involved with the country’s cricket. He told me, ‘You will go to the World Cup, but you will have to be managed. Do one thing, don’t play the first match against Afghanistan.’ I said that the match is still 12-13 days away. I will be in a good state in 12-13 days, why shouldn’t I play.

“Then he said, ‘If you play, we are planning to make you bat lower down the order.’ So you must realise my mindset. I had just played a good innings, I was feeling happy. It wasn’t possible for me tolerate such statements. For 17 years I have batted as an opener. I have never batted at 3-4 in my life. If I had batted at 3-4 before, I could’ve adjusted. I have no experience of batting at 3/4/5. So, naturally I didn’t like what I heard. I got agitated, because I didn’t like the thing. I felt that people were putting obstacles ahead of me intentionally. ‘You did this, now you have to do that’ This is what I felt.