‘Mashrafe bhai is still our captain’

Having lost five straight matches under Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, Sylhet Strikers today bagged their first win of the ongoing BPL tournament with a 15-run win over Durdanto Dhaka under stand-in skipper Mohammad Mithun, who led the batting effort with a fifty. 

Mashrafe had decided to take a break from ongoing BPL due to political commitments and his break is likely to continue for an unforeseen period of time.

He had faced criticism after he started the BPL without being fit. Former players such as Mohammed Ashraful had said that playing an unfit Mashrafe was belittling the tournament.

Mithun struck a 46-ball 59 which was crucial to his team. When he came to the press conference, he was asked if him leading from the front with performances was the difference today after a run of five successive defeats under Mashrafe.

'No, Mashrafe bhai is still our captain and I am fulfilling the responsibility in his absence," Mithun reminded.

"From the beginning, he was involved with how we will go about things. I talked to him this morning as well. As you know, he couldn't participate in the BPL due to a busy schedule," Mithun added.

The stand-in skipper also felt that players like Mashrafe's contributions cannot be judged by one match or a tournament.

"They have a lot of contribution for Bangladesh cricket and we should all respect those who contributed to Bangladesh cricket. The way that I was eager to win,, Mashrafe bhai too had the same wish and he gave the full effort from his side. Unfortunately, results didn't come in our favour. We can't gurantee a win but we can maintain the process and work on our understanding and team's environment. That's what we are doing," he added.

Mithun also stated that Najmul Hossain Shanto had responsibility of being the captain in the field during their fielding innings. "I had told Shanto that he needs to take chances in the field. Talking to bowlers and setting up the field is not something I can do alone all the time. I told him to fulfil the captaincy role during fielding. Ofcourse we will discuss before taking a decision but I trust him fully. He has good cricket knowledge," he said.