Sports Desk

Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan said that his missing couple of games in the Zimbabwe series would allow the team management to try out different combinations in the shortest format ahead of the ICC T20 World Cup.

A Bangladesh Cricket Board official recently said that Shakib will miss a couple of games in the home series against Zimbabwe as he will be busy playing in the Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League, the country’s traditional List A tournament.

The announcement raised quite a few eyebrows considering it was not very common to see any player playing domestic cricket at the expense of national duty.

“I will certainly play in the Zimbabwe series and in the country, there might be confusion about it and in the social media there were talks that I will not play the Zimbabwe series and play in the DPL,” Shakib told reporters in a private programme in USA on Wednesday.

“I have spoken with the coach and captain. The coach said it would be fine if I play two matches. Later, the captain and selector said that if I play two to three matches, it will be fine for them. I told them there is no problem. This was the decision but there is a lot of confusion in this regard in the country which is baseless.

“Basically these decisions (playing in a series or not) are taken on the basis of discussion and not on my wish. Because there will be two matches of DPL before the last three games of the Zimbabwe series, I will have the chance to play the last two matches (of DPL) and the preparation will be good. That is the reason for playing two matches in DPL and nothing more than that,” he said.

Meanwhile, Shakib expressed his optimism of achieving something good in the forthcoming ICC T20 World Cup.

“Though we are in a tough group, the difference between the two teams in T20 is very small. Any team can beat any side. Certainly, there will be competition but I think the conditions will suit us.

“We can have Bangladesh-like pitches there in Dallas and it will help us. I don’t know how the pitches in New York will behave but I hope we will get a lot of support,” he said.

“It is difficult to say whether we are in a place to claim the World Cup or not but in T20, any team can beat any team and there is nothing like a big or small team. We need to have that faith and if we can play with that faith, we can do something good. I am not saying we can win the trophy or not, but we can do well,” he concluded.