Tamim turned down CPL offer

|| CF Correspondent || 

Bangladesh ODI captain Tamim Iqbal turned down offer to play in the Caribbean Premier League in order to be available in Dhaka Premier League that is postponed after the first-round games.

Dhaka Premier League, the premier 50-over cricket tournament of the country, has remained suspended since March this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Discussions between Bangladesh Cricket Board [BCB], Cricket Committee of Dhaka Metropolis [CCDM] and the players are a regular effort in order to get the tournament back to the field.

“I decided not to take the offer firstly because of my commitment in Dhaka Premier League. The tournament is suspended but as you know we all are waiting for it to resume which can happen any time,” Tamim told reporters on Wednesday.

“And then there is also the issue with travelling. Due to the Covid-19 there is travel restriction and route to West Indies is very long. Say I make it to the islands but there is an emergency in my family, I will not be able to return easy. I do not want to take that chance,” he said.

Tamim made his only appearance in the tournament in 2013 for St Lucia Zouks. The left-handed batsman played seven matches for the CPL T20 side and scored 162 with highest score of 75.

The eighth edition of the CPL, the domestic Twenty20 cricket league in West Indies, was initially planned to be played in six islands – Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Guyana, Barbados, Jamaica and Saint Lucia. However, due to the Covid 19 pandemic, a request was made in June 2020 to play all of the matches in Trinidad.