Sending Mahmudullah back to the country is out of question, says BCB chief

Bangladesh Cricket Board President Nazmul Hassan has shrugged off the news of Mahmudullah being sent back to the country from Sri Lanka.

Sports Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 13 March 2017, 04:12 PM
Updated : 13 March 2017, 04:19 PM

He was completely taken by surprise when he received the news at a press conference on Monday evening.

Mahmudullah has been going through a lean phase, particularly in Tests, and according to team manager Khaled Mahmud, he would be sent back home after being dropped from the second Test.

Leaving Mahmudullah out of the Colombo Test may be justified for his poor form, but the decision to keep him out of the limited-overs games rocked the cricket arena of the country.

BCB chief, however, said there was no way he could be sent back.

“I have heard no such news. As he is not in the next Test if he wants to come to the country now... he can go back with Mashrafe [Bin Mortaza] and the other, that is a different matter,” Hassan said.

“I don’t know this... but sending him back is out of the question. The one-day games are coming; he is supposed to be in them. I would know if there was a change of plans.”

Mahmudullah has been named in the 16-men squad announced by the board later in the evening.

Bangladesh Cricket Board Ismail Haider Mallick then told Hassan that Mahmudullah himself wanted to come back home for three-four days.

The chief then said, “I don’t know. If he wants to come, that’s a separate matter. There is a break of several days [after the Tests], so if he wants to come back and then go again, that’s different. But I did not hear anything about sending him back.”

“They spoke about this in Sri Lanka? I really can’t tell why Sujon [Mahmud] said this before talking to someone. We need to know if it was Riyad [Mahmudullah] who wanted this or it was [team management].

“Because they are not supposed to tell a player to leave before discussing it over with me,” Hassan added.

In the last Bangladesh Premier League, the 31-year-old allrounder won the best player award for his fine allround show. But the slump began late in December last year on Bangladesh’s tour of New Zealand.

His ODI scores against the Black Caps were 0, 1 and 3. He hit a half-century in the opening Twenty20 there but followed it up with 19 and 18.

He has been going through an extended rough patch in Tests, scoring a half-century only once, against India in Hyderabad last month, in his last 13 innings.

Mahmudullah had scores of just 8 and 0 to show for his efforts in the first Test against Sri Lanka as Bangladesh suffered a huge 159-run defeat in Galle to be left trailing in the two-Test series.

The ODI series begin on Mar 25 in Dambulla.