BCB grants Tamim's leave from upcoming Test, T20 series
Pic- Cricfrenzy
|| CF Correspondent ||
Bangladesh opener Tamim Iqbal will not be available in the upcoming lone Test against Afghanistan and also in the Tri-Nation T20 series involving Afghanistan and Zimbabwe as Bangladesh Cricket Board granted him leave as per his request.
Tamim earlier had requested BCB before Eid-ul-Azha to allow him to skip the series citing mental fatigue as the major reason behind his decision and BCB agreed as they have given Shakib Al Hasan a break - following a request from the player - during last month's ODI series against Sri Lanka. They had also allowed Shakib time off during the 2017 Test series against South Africa.
“Tamim had made the request before Eid and we’ve decided to allow him to skip the series and so he’ll not be playing the Test and the Tri-Nation T20 Series,’’ Bangladesh chief selector Minhajul Abedin told reporters at the BCB premises on Thursday.
Afghanistan will arrive in Dhaka on August 31 and they will play their first Test against Bangladesh at Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chattogram from September 5 to 9.
After the Test, Bangladesh will play the Tri-Nation T20 Series with Afghanistan and Zimbabwe. Bangladesh will play at least four games in that series.
Tamim has been going through a bad patch for a long time. He scored just 235 runs in eight games he played in the just concluded ICC World Cup 2019 in England and Wales featuring just one fifty in the marquee event.
After that, he also failed in the Sri Lanka tour where Bangladesh lost all three ODIs of the series. Tamim led the team and returned home with nothing.
In his letter to the BCB, Tamim asked for a break after he had gone through a tough time in the last three months. Apart from an ordinary World Cup campaign in which he scored only one fifty, and a disastrous ODI series against Sri Lanka, in which he also led Bangladesh, Tamim was subjected to a lot of criticism on social media.
After his match-winning 141 in the BPL final in February, Tamim had a rough time in the ODIs in New Zealand before bouncing back superbly in the Tests. He then continued his good form during the tri-series in Ireland, scoring crucial runs before slowly going off the boil in the World Cup.
During the 2019 World Cup, Tamim spoke about the demons of the 2015 tournament, in which he made only 154 runs in six innings, and was subsequently abused on social media. Tamim said those memories affected his preparation for this year's event in England and Wales, leading to a sequence where he was bowled in six consecutive ODI innings.
In this situation, Bangladesh’s Test and T20 captain Shakib Al Hasan advised Tamim to take leave and prepare himself for making a good comeback in the next assignment in India in November.
Tamim is expected to leave the country in the next few days to work on his fitness, will be available for Bangladesh's next assignment, a tour of India in November when they play three T20Is and two Tests.
