- Shakib Al Hasan, the newly appointed captain of Bangladesh’s T20I side, has asked the media to not live in a fool’s kingdom because it’s not possible to significantly improve Bangladesh’s performances in the shortest format of the game overnight.
While Bangladesh has made good strides in test and ODI cricket in the last decade or so, they have failed to become a formidable T20I side, when they are not playing at home. On square turners at home, Bangladesh has managed to win a few series against the big teams, but they have struggled when they have had to play on good batting wickets away from home.
Shakib Al Hasan has recently replaced one of Bangladesh’s senior players Mahmudullah as the captain of the T20I side and he made it very clear in his first interaction to the media after his appointment that he doesn’t have any immediate goals at all.
According to Shakib, he wants his team to achieve some good results when they feature in the T20 World Cup in Australia, but he can’t bring any sudden transformation to Bangladesh’s game in a couple of days because in comparison to the level of the other international teams in T20 cricket, Bangladesh is nowhere near.
Shakib Al Hasan said, "I've no goals. My only aim is that Bangladesh do well in the World Cup. If someone thinks I can change things within days then we are living in fool's kingdom".
— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) August 20, 2022
We have to make a new beginning in the T20 format of the game: Shakib Al Hasan
Shakib Al Hasan is of the view that the only way for Bangladesh to become a formidable T20I side is to make a new beginning in this format with a new brand of cricket and concentrate on gradual progress as a team, rather than looking for any quick solutions.
Shakib was given the test captaincy of Bangladesh a few months back and now he has taken over as the T20I captain as well, but the ODI captaincy of Bangladesh remains with the opening batsman Tamim Iqbal who has already retired from T20 international cricket.
