Posting a picture with Shakib Al Hasan on social media, selector Hannan Sarkar wrote, ‘Hopefully, Shakib will play the last Test match in Mirpur. World cricket will surely miss Shakib in red ball cricket. You will always be remembered…legend.’
The team for the South Africa series is yet to be announced. However, Hannan’s post started whispering that Shakib will be announced in the Bangladesh squad. Shakib’s name appeared in an e-mail message sent by BCB on Wednesday (October 16) afternoon. It means that all the ‘procedures’ for Shakib’s arrival in the country have been completed.
Hannan Sarkar also said the same in the media. He said, the farewell of a legendary cricketer like Shakib should be like this. The selector of the national team spoke about the Mirpur Test team and Shakib.
What factors were taken into consideration in selecting the squad for the South Africa series?
Hannan Sarkar: We had a 16 man squad in the previous two series. We are playing a home series, where the squad has been reduced to 15 players. All teams try to take home advantage, we may have kept that in mind. I have reduced one pacer to three in the squad. There are eight batsmen. There are two all-rounders, two specialist spinners.
How do you see the team as a whole?
Hannan Sarkar: Overall, I think it’s a fairly balanced team. Captains, coaches have options. The way they try to arrange the team, I tried to arrange the team with the option.
Bangladesh won the series against Pakistan. Lost against India. What is the expectation this time?
Hannan Sarkar: We did very well with Pakistan. Then with India, I didn’t get the desired results there. Of course, this series of ours is also very important. As we know, the Test Championship depends a lot on this series. In that case, I did some homework. I discussed with the captain and the board and prepared a plan. Hopefully, as we have thought or planned; Players can play accordingly. I want to forget the bad memories and go back to the old good memories. Hope to get expected results in this series.
The team has been announced keeping Shakib Al Hasan. He had a question about coming to the country. Surely it has passed?
Hannan Sarkar: We all already know that Shakib wanted to retire from the Mirpur Test. We know it was a government issue, our cricket board issue. We selectors normally try to get clearance from all places before teaming up. Especially when the clearance is given by the cricket board, this player is available or any player is available, then we do the selection.
After that?
Hannan Sarkar: When we got the green signal from the cricket board, Shakib is available for selection. Naturally we took Shakib. And it is a matter of happiness that such a legendary player, Mirpur Home of Cricket, can retire from there. It is for him as a player and for all of us as people of Bangladesh. Hopefully, this match will be our memorable match. The match with which Shakib will give good performance as well as good contribution for Bangladesh cricket. All the best for Shakib. I think it is going to be a big achievement for Bangladesh cricket that such a great player is going to retire from the field.
(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = ”
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));