Tamim Iqbal opens out about his exclusion from the 2023 World Cup while Shakib Al Hasan attacks him on national television

Tamim Iqbal claims the Bangladesh Cricket Board is trying to remove him from the team.

Tamim Iqbal opens out about his exclusion from the 2023 World Cup while Shakib Al Hasan attacks him on national television

Shakib Al Hasan called Tamim Iqbal "childish" (Image via Cricket365)

In the past few days there has been a lot of drama involved with the Bangladesh Cricket Team. It began when young pacer, Tanzim Hasan Sheikh, was called out due to his misogynistic posts. Then came the report of a meeting between Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal and the Bangladesh Cricket Board President. 

In this meeting, Tamim informed his captain and the selectors that he could miss up to four matches in the 2023 ICC ODI World Cup due to his back. Hearing this, Shakib was unhappy and demanded that the 34-year-old opener shouldn’t travel to India, threatening that he would boycott the world cup if Tamim was included in the squad. 

YouTube video

The next day it was confirmed, Tamim Iqbal would not travel to the biggest event in the world of cricket. The selectors claimed they didn’t select him because of his back issues, but Tamim believed there was a different reason. 

The opener put up a video on his Facebook page, where he claimed the BCB were putting up roadblocks for him to not attend the World Cup. He was told by BCB officials that he would need to bat down the order, to which Tamim didn’t react happily. Reasoning that for a majority part of his career he has opened, he was unhappy when told he would need to bat in the middle order. 

Over that, he denied the reports that stated he could play only 5 matches in the World Cup, saying that he was en route to full recovery before the start of the competition. Tamim finally ended the video saying that the BCB was intentionally trying to remove him from the team. 

Related: Bangladesh’s Tamim Iqbal steps down from ODI captaincy, to miss Asia Cup 2023 due to injury

Shakib Al Hasan attacks Tamim Iqbal on live television 

The Bangladesh captain was interviewed by a Dhaka based TV channel, called T-Sports. When the topic of Tamim Iqbal came up, Shakib Al Hasan had nothing positive to say about his ex-captain and the situation. 

Shakib Al Hasan revealed he reluctantly took captaincy, never wanted to be one (Image via ICC)

He confirmed that Tamim was asked to play in the middle order, which Tamim refused. To this, Shakib called his ex-captain childish and individual minded. He criticized Tamim for not being a team player and said the team should always come first. The captain cited the example of Rohit Sharma, who started off as a middle order batsman but agreed to open for the team. He also confirmed that he wouldn’t have taken Tamim if he was going to miss games, as Tamim would “cheat” another player off a spot.

Shakib also confirmed he had no intention of being captain, saying he was reluctant to take the role. Only reason he accepted the role was because the team was in turmoil. The all-rounder had also considered quitting as captain after the 2023 Asia Cup, but decided to keep the role until the end of the World Cup. 

Shakib has also announced how his final years as a professional cricketer would go, saying the 2025 Champions Trophy would be his last outing. He plans to retire from Test Cricket after the World Cup, T20Is after the 2024 ICC T20I World Cup and will continue playing ODIs till 2025.

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