DHAKA, August 15, 2019 (BSS) – The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) will
talk to Mashrafe Bin Mortaza within couple of days to know his retirement
plan as the board has a plan to give the ODI captain a grand farewell.
On multiple occasions, Mashrafe said he has not many cricket ahead, but he
actually did not reveal the time when he wants to walk into the sunset.
The most successful captain of the side retired from the T20 International
cricket in 2017 and did not play any Test cricket since 2009.
He was in good form in one-day cricket before experiencing a poor form in
the 2019 World Cup in which he took just one wicket in eight matches.
Basically, after that performance, his retirement issue came to the fore but
he decided to play the ODI series in Sri Lanka before an injury at the
eleventh hour ruled him out of the tour.
BCB president Nazmul Hassan Papon earlier said they want to give Mashrafe
a befitting farewell, arranging a home series to acknowledge his contribution
to the country’s cricket.
As Bangladesh has no ODI match this year, the BCB has a plan to organise a
one-off ODI against Zimbabwe to give Mashrafe a farewell.
Zimbabwe, against whom Mashrafe made his ODI debut in 2001, will be in the
country in the next month to play a tri-nation T20 series, which will also
involve Afghanistan.
BCB official said if Mashrafe wants to retire from the cricket, they will
talk to Zimbabwe to arrange just a lone ODI match for him only. Though it
will cost BCB a huge amount of money, the board said, it would not back out
to make the farewell memorable.
“I am yet to talk to him (Mashrafe). I will sit with him within a couple of
days to know what he is thinking about his retirement,” Papon said on
Thursday. The BCB, however, expects that Zimbabwe would agree with the
proposal of playing a one-off ODI series.
Bangladesh will host Afghanistan for a solitary Test next month, which will
be followed by a tri-nation T20I series. It was supposed to be a bilateral
T20 series with Afghanistan but, on request of Zimbabwe, BCB included them
here to make it a tri-nation one.
However, Zimbabwe’s participation in the series was in limbo following the
ICC’s suspension but they managed to come here finally.