BCB’s president asks senior players to be honest with the board about their futures.

Nazmul Hassan encourages players like Tamim, Rahim, Shakib, and Mahmudullah to make their own judgments on their futures rather than relying on the team management. Getty Images

The players are struggling to excel in Test cricket because they haven’t adopted the appropriate mindset, according to Bangladesh Cricket Board head Nazmul Hasan. Bangladesh has previously challenged Pakistan, New Zealand, and South Africa in the first Test, but has faltered as the series went.

Hassan and other board members met with the team management ahead of the home Test series against Sri Lanka. “We were curious about their thoughts on the South Africa excursion. Mominul Haq was present because he is leaving for Chattogram tonight. I chatted with him (Mominul) as well as other coaching staff members. Hassan explained, “I basically got an idea about their strategy and plan.”

BCB's president asks senior players to be honest with the board about their futures.

“I was curious as to why we were performing so poorly in tests. The coaching team gave me instances of four to five Tests in which they believe we can contend in the first, but lose in the second. It happened at home against Pakistan, as well as in New Zealand and South Africa.

“They (coaching staff) are still trying to figure out why this is occurring, but they believe it’s because a lot of our players don’t have the mentality to play 10 days of cricket in a row, and that’s something we need to work on.”

“The issue is that Test cricketers do not participate in domestic longer-version cricket, so they do not have the habit of playing for long periods of time.” With the international schedule we have now, there is hardly any downtime, so we can’t force them to play domestic cricket if we don’t want to stop domestic cricket.”

The president of the BCB also stated that senior players must make a decision and meet with board authorities regarding their fate.

Tamim Iqbal, Shakib al Hasan, Mahmudullah, and Mushfiqur Rahim are all members of the national team, but they are seeking for ways to extend their playing careers as they get older. Mahmudullah has already opted to take a six-month break from T20 cricket. He has failed to make any official pronouncements about his future plans, despite the fact that the six-month period concluded in April. In order to extend his limited-overs career, he also opted to retire from Test cricket.

“In terms of seniors, if you look around the world, you’ll notice a lot of things have changed since T20 cricket began,” Hasan added. “Putting all your concentration on T20 cricket, given that you can play for a long time because the game’s time duration is short, may surely harm other formats, and many players are shifting away from Test cricket to focus on T20s.”

“Our issue is that we don’t want anyone to be upset, so we want them to leave with a smile on their face.” They should be able to make their own decisions as soon as possible. However, if they are unable to make a decision, we will be forced to make one.

“Mahmudullah has retired from Test cricket, while Tamim does not play T20s, and there is Mushfiqur, who is now playing and whose plans will be revealed soon.” It’s preferable to sit with the board rather than the media because it gives us more time to prepare substitutes. This occurs in other nations, but not in ours, though we hope that will change in the future.

“Shakib’s circumstance is unique among the seniors, and discussing him is challenging. Everyone wants him in every format, but obtaining him is a challenge. Actually, we don’t know what he’ll play and what he won’t because, when I speak with him, he seems to want to play in any format, but when a game comes up, he has problems, and those problems are true, so you can’t deny it. As a result, it’s impossible to say much about him.”