Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hassan said that he doesn’t believe his previous statement on Tamim Iqbal had any impact in the opener’s shock decision to retire from international cricket. Nazmul also couldn’t understand why Tamim was crying after announcing his retirement.
BCB president also said that he had no idea beforehand that Tamim was going to announce his retirement out of the blue.
In the press conference ahead of the Afghanistan series, Tamim declared that he wasn’t a 100 per cent fit. The Bangladesh captain said that he will assess his fitness after playing the first ODI. But the BCB president was displeased by Tamim’s statement and he let his displeasure known to the media.
A day after the match, on Thursday noon, Tamim bid adieu to international cricket. When asked if his reaction to Tamim’s statement before the first ODI had any effect on Tamim’s retirement, Nazmul told Prothom Alo, “Not at all. Not even one per cent. Although, I can’t say ‘no’ for sure because I don’t really know why (he retired).”
“But I’ll say it again, no player can decide whether he is fit to play a match or not on the day of the match- this won’t be tolerated. You are either fit or you’re not. If you are fit you will be in the team, otherwise you won’t be. That’s my message. I don’t think there is any place in the world where this rule isn’t followed. This is exactly what I’ll do,” Nazmul said.
Nazmul, however, doesn’t believe that his strictness on the issue was a reason behind Tamim’s retirement, “I don’t believe that someone would let go of captaincy or retire from international cricket for this.”
Nazmul tried to contact Tamim since his press conference in Chattogram, but has failed to reach him. When asked what was his reaction after seeing Tamim’s press conference, he said, “I simply don’t understand what has happened, and what was he crying about. Nobody told him to sit there (in the press conference). Nobody told him to do this. He himself chose to do this, then why is he crying?”
Nazmul also feels that Tamim didn’t take this decision in the spur of the moment, “This was all planned. Why has he disappeared now? Maybe earlier he was thinking that we will try to stop him from doing this (retire). But now he has already done it. Why is he out of reach now? What more can I say, you tell me. This is really unfortunate.”
The board had planned to keep Tamim as captain at least till the next World Cup, said Nazmul. Tamim also knew that, claimed the BCB president.
“We don’t have much time left. And it’s not easy to change captaincy in such a short notice. Why didn’t he inform earlier? We can’t force someone to play. He had earlier told me he will play in the World Cup, and the Champions Trophy too. Now all of a sudden… that too in the middle of a series! He could’ve said he won’t play the next two matches, he isn’t feeling completely fit.”
Nazmul was stunned by the entire debacle, “He could’ve sat down with us, talked to us. No one knew anything, it’s such a strange thing. I’m really surprised. What’s the point in doing these things? This is bad for the team as well. Forget everything, a series is going on right now. All of this happening in the middle of it, is it not a bad thing? Now surely everyone is thinking about what might have happened and who will be the next captain. We didn’t want these things to happen.”
After Mahmudullah and Mushfiqur Rahim sprung on their retirements from different formats without informing beforehand, Nazmul feels that Tamim’s shock retirement will set a bad precedent for the future.