Tamim Iqbal hints at stepping away from one format of the game to prolong career
Bangladesh ODI skipper Tamim Iqbal has conceded that it won’t be practically possible for him to continue playing all 3 formats, and revealed that he might soon retire from one of the three formats of the game. Tamim insisted that he might have to give up one format in order to prolong his career.
32 is not an age where batsmen generally tend to burn out, but Tamim Iqbal is starkly different to most cricketers in the world. Having made his debut in 2007, as a 17-year-old, Tamim has played international cricket now for 14 years and hence, despite being just 32, is feeling the mental and physical toll the game tends to inflict on cricketers. With a staggering 353 international caps to his name, the southpaw is among the top three most capped players in Bangladesh’s history, but like several of his compatriots and counterparts, the Bangladesh ODI skipper has dreams and plans of having an elongated international career stretching well into the late 30s.
Now, into the 15th year of his international career, Tamim has conceded that, in order to realize that dream, it is inevitable that he will need to step away from one of the three formats of the game, not specifying whether it would be ODIs, T20Is or Tests.
"If I want to play for five to six years then it is very difficult for me to play three formats. Normally if you see the international cricketers around the world you will see they don't retire from all the formats at one go,” Cricbuzz quoted Tamim as saying.
"They let go of one format and then they play the other two formats and then they retire. What I want to say is that the same thing is for me if I feel now or say six months or year or after two years... if I feel that I have to let go of one format, I will let go of one format.
"I don't want to indicate anything as I said it can be ODIs, Tests or T20s. I will play those two formats where I can contribute to the team and let go that format where I feel that I have nothing much to give," said Tamim.
Recently, Tamim missed the T20Is versus New Zealand citing personal reasons, but the 32-year-old asserted that he is incredibly keen to partake in the T20 World Cup, that is only seven months away. The southpaw further claimed that he exactly knows which format he needs to give up and re-stressed that his ultimate goal is to represent Bangladesh for as long as he could.
"Of course the T20 World Cup is very much on my mind and this is just six months away and I am not 36 or 37, so why not?. T20 is not out of mind. Look how I want to have my cricketing career and how I would like it to shape is in my head. I know which format I want to leave early and which format I want to leave later. I know everything and I don't think that I have to disclose everything to everyone.
"When I feel that I have to let go of this format to prolong the other two, I will not push myself and carry on with that. The message is very clear, I want to play for Bangladesh as long as possible and I want to give my best for the country. I want to leave one format just to make sure I can give my best to the other two formats. It is not that I am tired of Test cricket that I am leaving or I am tired of T20 that I am leaving, it is just to make sure that I can give my best to other two formats.”
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