Mashrafee avalibility against Zimbabwe: a thousand dollar question
Pic: Cricfrenzy
|| CF Correspondent ||
It had not happened during the last 18 years when pace bowler Mashrafee bin Murtaza availability turned out to be the million dollar question.
Apart from injury most of the time he was available but certainly not this time round despite time is running out for him considering the present circumstances.
Bangladesh selection panel is at dark regarding his availability as they don’t have any clear information about him and his whereabouts.
Bangladesh will have to play three ODI’s after the lone Test against Zimbabwe at Sylhet respectively in 1,3 and 6 March but the team management cannot make a road map for the series considering they are not sure about the present status of their inspirational leader.
‘’We are not sure whether he is available or not because we don’t have any information about his fitness and all those things as he have not reported to Julian about his fitness status,’’ BCB chief selector Minhajul Abedin told Daily Sun on Monday.
‘’Apart from that the board will have to announce the captain first because unless that is announced we cannot make any comment on the issue of his availability,’’ he said.
Mashrafee is recently doing gym work and running regularly at the BCB academy premises and it indicates that he is preparing him to play competitive cricket irrespective of it status- international or domestic.
If he is not considered for national team in all likelihood he is expected to feature in the Dhaka Premier League, country’s traditional Dhaka-base clubs 50-over tournament.
According to BCB sources Mashrafee is expected to sit with the BCB high-ups with a day or two regarding his future though some influential inside the board insisted they have made up their mind about Mashrafee.
Probably he will offered to retire in front of his home crowd through making him part of the ODI’s squad against Zimbabwe and if he is ready to accept is than its ok otherwise our board president is likely to make the final call about him,’’ said a sources involved with the entire development regarding Mashrafee.
Russell Domingo is set to sit down with Mashrafe Mortaza to seek some clarity about the ODI captain's future as his first meeting did not turned out successful as BCB is desperate for some clarity on Mortaza's future.
The retirement talks of Mashrafe have been going around since the World Cup last year but neither BCB nor Mortaza have been able to finalise anything. Mortaza has decided to withdraw his name from the list of nationally contracted cricketers for 2020 but insisted that he wants to continue playing cricket and isn't expecting a farewell.
