Shakib announced captain for Bangladesh T20 team

Star allrounder Shakib Al Hasan has been put at the helm of Bangladesh Twenty20 team after Mashrafe Bin Mortaza retired from the format.

Sports Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 22 April 2017, 12:17 PM
Updated : 22 April 2017, 03:54 PM

The Bangladesh Cricket Board’s announcement on Saturday confirms three separate captains for the Tigers, one for each format.

BCB President Nazmul Hassan made Shakib’s new role public at Mirpur’s Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium.

“Pakistan may arrive soon, besides that we don’t have too many T20s coming up for a while. Still, we made the decision of who would be T20 captain in today’s board meeting,” he said.

Mashrafe, who had been leading the team in both ODIs and T20s since late 2014, signed off from the shortest format during their tour of Sri Lanka earlier this month.

The strapping pacer, however, will continue his role in the 50-over games while Mushfiqur Rahim leads the team in Tests.

Shakib, who turned 30 last month, had carried out captaincy before, filling in the shoes of Mashrafe after the pacer’s knee injury resurfaced on their Caribbean tour of 2009.

Mashrafe did return to his position after recovering, but he then hurt his ankle in the home series against New Zealand, leaving the BCB to settle for Shakib as skipper.

The southpaw had to hand on the torch to Mushfiqur in 2011 after Bangladesh were beaten in Test and ODI series in Zimbabwe.

In 2014, the talismanic allrounder was made the deputy to Mashrafe in the limited-overs formats.

The BCB chief put emphasis on Shakib’s on-field performance as the key to making him captain once again.

“His name naturally came up because he was vice-captain. We did have other names, but he is ahead of the others taking everything into account. He is doing brilliantly now, playing extraordinary cricket,” Hassan added.

With Bangladesh having lost all four T20s under him, Shakib will be keen to seal his first win in a 20-over affair in national colours.

Shakib is in India at the moment for his IPL stint with Kolkata Knight Riders.