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Why the pause?
SPORTS REPORTER
Bangladesh team continued their training camp yesterday with the players going through the gears, doing endurance training along with some fielding exercises. There was even a specific drill for spinners that caught the media’s interest.
In the corner wicket, the spinners bowled in tandem as spin coach Rangana Herath watched over proceedings. There were footballs used to mark the lengths the spinners would bowl, and later Herath would tell them which bowl to deliver after coming half way through their run up. It was an exercise to allow spinners to make quick adjustments especially in circumstances where the batter makes a movement or comes down the track.
While proceedings are grinding along, however, the only thing that is on halt and adding a bit of uncertainty to Tigers’ proceedings is determining the ODI side’s captain. Coach Chandika Hathurusingha also arrived in the country yesterday and training would now get more momentum from the coming days.
What appeared a pretty straightforward captaincy announcement at first, even to Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) directors, now seems a little foggy as the board did not name the captain following an emergency board meeting on Tuesday.
A few rumours regarding obstacles in naming Shakib Al Hasan as captain also made its way into the media fraternity.
Why the wait? Tamim Iqbal stepping down from captaincy so close to big events had seen the board try and step back to assess the situation at hand. The emergency meeting cleared that BCB president now has the mandate to move ahead with negotiations.
“The wait is because Tamim was there as captain and him not being there [having stepped down] caused this situation in the first place. Since some of them [captaincy candidates] are also due in the country, we wanted to talk to them and then confirm. We haven’t talked to them yet. Emergency board meeting was called to ask for everyone’s [directors’] opinion,” a BCB high-up told The Daily Star on conditions of anonymity.
Although many within BCB had assumed that the captaincy decision would come, the board wanted to discuss their terms and conditions, while also assessing the terms Shakib would put forward, before holding talks with the candidates.
Asked if communication with Shakib had taken place, he informed, “No. First the board wanted to discuss issues with directors before communicating with players. Some of the players are supposed to arrive soon [to the country] and in one or two days the captaincy will be finalised.”
BCB sources also have now confirmed that despite there being a delay, Shakib’s possibility of becoming the captain is the greatest.
“The BCB president has also said that if he can carry the responsibility, the board doesn’t have an issue,” another BCB source told The Daily Star on conditions of anonymity.
The delay was since Shakib already has the Test and T20I captaincy, there is a bit of stiffness from the board’s part to give him another big task.
“We will talk to him to try to understand how he feels comfortable, and then that is how we will take things forward,” the source added.
With Hathurusingha now also back in the country, maybe some final details would be discussed with the head coach as well before the captaincy discussion moves forward. The wait, however, is only prolonging scope for rumours with the team management looking to name the Asia Cup squad.