Mashrafe unhappy with forced retirement saga
Image : Collected
|| CF Correspondent ||
Former Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza has expressed that he was unhappy about how the team management and board officials sought him out of the team and forced him to retire.
Mashrafe was Bangladesh’s most successful captain with 50 wins as captain and adieu him from international career after the final one day international against Zimbabwe at Chattogram recently.
The paceman admitted that he was rushed by the board to call his international career which really hurt him.
“Honestly speaking it seemed that there was a rush to bid me farewell and it was certainly hurting me,” Mortaza Bin Morataza said.
“I had two main reasons to hurt me. Firstly, they had to arrange a match to bid me farewell and it was not a normal match - a normal bilateral series is something and arranging a special match in a hurry is something else. Secondly, they were prepared to spend Tk two crore for that match,” Mashrafe told Cricbuzz.
“From an ethical point of view, it is not right considering our first-class cricket players are not getting paid enough,” he added.
Mortaza revealed that he was really hurt by some board members’ comments after the post-World Cup, where somebody has also put up a question about the playing number of players in the mega event.
“What was worse is that they spread rumours like the Bangladesh team played nine and a half players in the World Cup. Do you feel I deserve this? Maybe they [board] wanted to give me a better farewell but you must see my side as well. There were talks about me going for the Sri Lanka tour. I would have gone to Sri Lanka if I had not been injured,” he pointed out.
“All of a sudden, there was a rush to push me (out). All I know is that I’ve given my life to cricket even though I was torn apart and bleeding inside. If money was the main criteria, I could have done many things, more so when my career was troubled with so many injuries,” he also said.
“I didn’t even go to play in ICL when I had an offer of Tk eight crore. I didn’t do that. I’ve played cricket by giving my life and maybe I could not become such a great player. But at least I expect some kind of respect,” he concluded
