Former chief selector Minhajul Abedin happy with T20 World Cup squad
|| CF CORRESPONDENT ||
Former Bangladesh chief selector Minhajul Abedin Nannu pleased with the 15-men World Cup squad as he said during his tenure these players were nurtured and backed by the Bangladesh Cricket Board’s (BCB) selection panel and now they are picked for the mega event.
“Those who are going now, have been playing for the past one and a half years, and we were nurturing them. They were in the middle of playing. Their experience is good enough. I believe they have the ability to play well. The 15 selected player hopefully will bring something honorable for the country,” Nannu said exclusively to Cricfrenzy on Tuesday.
Najmul Hossain Shanto, who was appointed as Bangladesh captain in all formats earlier this year, is poised to lead his team in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2024.
BCB named injured Taskin Ahmed as the vice-captain for the tournament as all-rounder Mohammad Saifuddin, who was expected to be in the squad was dropped.
The current chief of the coordination of programmes Nannu optimistic about this squad, who were in the process for one and a half years and can give their best for Bangladesh.
“In the T20 format, we were lagging behind a lot. If you look at their performance over the past one and a half years, they have come to a place where they can perform well. This team has been playing regularly. We formed a pool of 27-28 players. Most of the cricketers are playing from there now. They have the ability to play good cricket. They will play the best game for the country. If they continue in a good process, I hope we will see something good,” Nannu said.
Bangladesh have picked young right-arm pacer Tanzim Hasan over Saifuddin, while Under-19 World Cup winners Tanzid Hasan Tamim, Towhid Hridoy are going to play their first T20I World Cup.
Leg-spinner Rishad Hossain and wicketkeeper-batter Jaker Ali are also looking to play a global cricket event for the first time.
Rishad, being a leg-spinner, often gets disregarded in domestic cricket where team officials, coaches and captains are reluctant to play him. As a result, he has had to get most of his bowling and batting practice in the nets.
However, Nannu and co. with head coach Chandika Hathurusingha had faith on him and now he has become a key member of the Bangladesh team.
“We struggled a lot with this particular player. That's Rishad Hossain. For the past one year, in domestic cricket... we had to fight with the local coaches. But Hathurusingha [Chandika] has supported us enough on this. Keeping a leg spinner in the team, our selection panel was confident enough. We wanted him to be part of the process with the team. We've kept him,”
“He has found himself in the Sri Lanka series. Since then, we believed that he could move forward. When you think about a player in international cricket, it takes a lot of effort. We were confident with him here, fought with the coaches of the national league. We made it mandatory for him to play in the first-class match. The boy has also worked hard for it, and now he's getting the result. Now it's time to move forward. He can do something for the country.” Nannu added.
