Bangladesh batter Tamim Iqbal, one of the country’s decorated cricketers, has made startling revelations regarding the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) after being snubbed from the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 squad.
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Tamim Iqbal had announced his retirement in July but reversed his decision at the request of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajid a day later. He was part of the side for the opening two games of the three-match ODI homes series against New Zealand.
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A Bangladesh news agency reported skipper Shakib Al Hasan and coach Chandika Hathurusinghe insisted that only fully fit players could be in contention for the selection of the tournament.
Chief selector Minhajul Abedin had said they were aware of Tamim Iqbal’s fitness woes, adding that he complained of injuries after the first ODI against the Black Caps.
“Tamim Iqbal has had an injury concern for a long time, which we know. He was fighting against it and got back to fitness ahead of the New Zealand series. But after the first game, he complained of injury again,” he said.
It led to him being dropped from the World Cup squad.
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Tamim Iqbal went on a tirade against the selectors and management following his snub from the tournament. In a video, the opening batter said they wanted to pick him despite his struggle with back injury but they had a disagreement after being told to bat down the order.
“A top-level official of the board who is involved with our cricket called me and told me that you will go to World Cup and we have to make you play by managing [your fitness],” he said. “He told, ‘do one thing, you don’t play the opening game against Afghanistan’. I told him look there is still 10 to 12 days and in 12-13 days I will be in good state so why I should not be playing?. Then he said, ‘if you play, we are planning to send you down the order.’
“You have to understand I’m coming from which mind set. I played a good innings after a while (against New Zealand) and I was happy about it. But all of a sudden these kinds of words were not something that I could take.”
The batter said he had been playing as an opening batter for the past 17 years and he did not want to change his position.
“I don’t have any experience batting at three and four position. Certainly I did not take it well. I was feeling that I am forced in lot of areas willingly, like it is going well let’s do something new [to irritate him]. That is what I was feeling.”
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Tamim Iqbal said he did not want to be part of the cricket board’s “dirty game” this way.
“At that point I said that if you are thinking like this then don’t send me because I don’t want to be part of this dirty game. Later I have a spoken a lot with him that I don’t want disclose in this platform and I want it remain between the two of us. Still I told him that if these things happen don’t keep me because I don’t want to be part these dirty things,” he said.
The opening batter has represented Bangladesh in 391 international fixtures across all three formats (Test, ODI and T20I). He has scored 15,249 runs with 25 centuries and 94 fifties to his name.
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