Former national captain Mashrafee bin Murtaza will lead the Bangladesh cricket team in the forthcoming Asian Games, said the Bangladesh Cricket Board president Nazmul Hasan on Tuesday. Mashrafee returned to helm after regular skipper Mushfiqur Rahim opted to skip the competition for his wedding ceremony. The BCB president hinted that the decision could eventually bring Mashrafee to the leadership of one-day international side as the board started to think appointing separate captains for Test and one-dayer.
Mushfiq’s captaincy in the just-concluded three-match series against the West Indies was called into question as he could not inspire the team to success despite taking some early momentum in at least two matches.
Bangladesh left West Indies reeling at 34-5 in the first one-dayer before losing the grip on the match and struck twice early in the third match only to concede 338 runs.
‘We have seen that we cannot grab the chances that often came to our way,’ said Nazmul after the BCB meeting. So, there is every possibility that the captaincy can be changed in future.
‘However, we don’t want to make the decision in the middle of the series,’ he said.
Nazmul added that they are closely looking at the team’s performance in the Caribbean and decided to send former national captain and now a board director Naimur Rahman for further monitoring.
The BCB president was particularly unhappy about the selection of starting line-up, which included four specialised opening batsmen in the first two matches.
‘I think the captain decides the playing XI. Now, we will have to look whether there were any other involvements. But certainly we have some observations regarding some of the selections,’ he said,
‘We will form a technical committee with some former national players to monitor the performance of national team and they will time to time report to the board,’ he said.
In the meeting the BCB decided to hold the third edition of Bangladesh Premier League in April after the ICC 2015 World Cup. The BCB also decided to take legal action against the franchises, who failed to clear their dues.
Among other key decisions, BCB appointed Nizamuddin Chowdhury as the new chief executive officer and named Sarwar Imran as the coach of Bangladesh A team.
Deputy general manager Nizamuddin was holding the office of acting CEO since the death of Manzur Ahmed in 2012.
The BCB has also decided to hold the elections for the vacant post of two vice-presidents election on September 16.
-With New Age input
