Tamim’s T20I retirement on the horizon?

Will Bangladesh ODI captain Tamim Iqbal make his comeback to the shortest format of the game to be available for the T20 World Cup in Australia after the end of a six-month break?

"We will know it very soon," said Jalal Yunus, Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB)'s cricket operations committee chairman, today after his meeting with the national players, who came to the board office to sign their new central contracts.

There is a very slim chance of Tamim making his comeback in T20Is. He may give it up to concentrate only on Tests and ODIs. A source close to the BCB also informed that he may make the announcement within the next two days.

On January 27 this year, Tamim had decided to stay out of the national T20 squad for the next six months but said that he might return to the side if he is needed ahead of the T20 World Cup in Australia in October. His six-month break period will end in July this year ahead of the Asia Cup T20 and the T20 World Cup. 

During a recent interview with The Daily Star, Tamim said: "Everyone, more or less, knows about my stand regarding T20 cricket. I've always been transparent about all my decisions and the board is very clear about my stand as well since I always inform them [BCB] in advance and not at the last moment."

Yunus, however, said that next time the board will decide who will play which format or who will play which series and it will also be clear in the next contract.   

"You know everything has been done disorderly in the past.  We invited players today to sign the contract and most of the players turned out and only a few missed due to their individual commitments. As we have got a chance to meet together, we have shared many things informally, especially how can we manage everything considering the workload in the coming days," said Yunus.

"In the future, we will decide everything regarding players' participation. For example, we will decide whether Mustafizur Rahman will play red-ball cricket or not. We can make some adjustments but the decision must come from the board. The things will be more clear in the next contract but we take care of everything regarding players' wellbeing," he added.   

He also said the board may arrange sessions for the national players with the psychologists in an attempt to help them handle pressure during a crunch situation in a match.

"As there has been a lot of talks regarding mental aspects behind our failures, we are considering arranging sessions with every individual and as a team ahead of the home series against Sri Lanka. If we cannot do it before the Sri Lanka series then we arrange it before the West Indies tour in June-July," he said.

Yunus informed that they had informally talked with the players regarding this matter. 

"We also discussed how they can avoid the social media outburst after any defeat," he added.

BCB had announced the central contract list (from January to December 2022) in March 10, trimming down last year's 24-member list to 21 this year, and most of the players including Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal and Mahmudullah Riyad signed the contract today.

Mahmudul Hasan Joy and Yasir Ali were included in the central contract list while Soumya Sarkar, Abu Jayed, Mohammad Saifuddin, Saif Hassan and Shamim Hossain were the five players left out of the central contract.