Reports | BCB keen on hearing Mortaza's decision on retirement plans
BCB is still waiting to hear the decision of Mashrafe Mortaza on his retirement from international cricket as they prepare for the home series against Zimbabwe in February. Mortaza was supposed to call it a day in international cricket after the 2019 World Cup but that did not quite materialize.
Mashrafe Mortaza has had a great international career for Bangladesh and has been one of their most impactful players ever. However, it all seemed to come to a decline as he was able to pick up only one wicket from eight matches in the 2019 World Cup. He was expected to call time on his career after the end of Bangladesh's World Cup campaign but he decided against it. Mortaza was again expected to confirm his retirement after Bangladesh toured Sri Lanka for an ODI series but that could not happen as he was sidelined due to a last-minute injury.
BCB seemed to be in a hurry to make Mortaza announce his retirement, as they tried to plan an ODI series against Zimbabwe while they were touring the country for a tri-nation T20I series that included Afghanistan. Now that ZImbabwe will be touring Bangladesh for three ODIs and two T20Is, talks of Mortaza's retirement have resurfaced again. Mortaza, who is fit again and playing in the BPL, said that although he had not given retirement serious thought, he would be talking to the BCB over the possibility of a farewell series.
"You can say that everybody is making me retire from the cricket. I don't carry any complaint for anyone. And I have not decided anything about retirement. If the board says something than I will think about it but I am enjoying the game. I haven't taken any decision on whether I will retire from the field but if the Cricket Board has that sort of plan than definitely I will rethink about it," Mortaza told Cricbuzz.
"To be honest, after taking one wicket from eight games, my gut feeling is that I won't be able to make it to the team. It's a selection matter. If the selectors think that they will give me another opportunity, I will try my best. But I know if anybody, apart from me, got one wicket in eight games, he would have been dropped from the team straightway," he added.
BCB cricket operation chairman Akram Khan insisted that it was completely up to Mortaza to decide on his retirement and renewal of his national contract.
"Whether Mortaza's national contract will be renewed or not largely depends on him as we are not sure what he is thinking about his international career. We could have taken a decision only if we knew his plans but as we are not aware of it we cannot say anything specific about it. We have a board meeting on January 12 and there we will take a decision about the national contracted players for this year," Akram said.
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