Ace Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan is certain to stroll back into the national side soon after his suspension ends but his return as a Test captain is anything but uncertain.
Shakib returned to the country in the early hours of Wednesday after having departed five months ago for the United States.
Shakib, who is now in the final two months of his year-long suspension from the game, is likely to begin his road to redemption in international cricket with the Tigers’ upcoming Sri Lanka series in October-November.
Shakib’s suspension, which was imposed on October 29 last year, reduced the strength of the Tigers in all formats, but his absence was most evident in Tests.
After Shakib’s ban, the Tigers played two Tests against India and one against Pakistan, and without their regular Test skipper, they ended up losing all the matches by an innings.
Stand-in skipper Mominul Haque could hardly fill Shakib’s shoes in those matches and the added responsibility had an adverse effect on his batting as he failed to notch even a fifty in both tours.
Mominul did improve his captaincy record a bit by leading the side to a win against Zimbabwe at home where he even scored a hundred.
The board now has to decide if it wants to give Mominul an extended run as captain or hand the captaincy back to the experienced Shakib.
Chief selector Minhajul Abedin dodged answering this tricky question, by saying the selectors have no say in who becomes the captain.
‘Captaincy is completely the BCB’s and cricket operations decision. The selection panel doesn’t make this decision,’ Minhajul told reporters at Mirpur on Wednesday.
The schedule of the three-Test series against Sri Lanka was yet to be finalised but the preliminary starting date of the first Test is October 24, meaning Shakib would be eligible to play from the second Test.
But Minhajul didn’t divulge how, and if, they would fly in Shakib in the middle of the tour to join the team.
‘At this moment, I can’t say anything about it because the team management will decide how they would do it, if they chose to do so.’
Cricket operations chairman Akram Khan said that they would give a guideline about Shakib’s return only after the ban ends and asked the media to be cautious while reporting about the issue.
‘We will give a guideline after the 29th, not before that. You all know that there are restrictions from the ICC. I request you all to be careful so that he doesn’t go against any ACSU law in the final stage after doing so well till now. You have to sacrifice that much,’ Akram said.
The national team’s coaches were supposed to arrive in Bangladesh on Wednesday but couldn’t as their flights got cancelled, said Akram.
The coaches were now likely to land in Dhaka on Sunday.
The former Bangladesh skipper also said that the board was planning to take 21-22 players to Sri Lanka for the tour, more than the usual 15 players.
Akram also revealed that Sri Lanka Cricket has proposed Kandy as the venue for the first two Tests and Colombo for the series finale. -new age
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