DHAKA, April 16, 2024 (BSS)—Bangladesh captain Najmul Hossain Shanto pushed the ball to the court of Tamim Iqbal about his ‘much talked’ return to the national team, stating that it’s the senior batter himself who would have to express his desire to play the International cricket again.

The talk to Tamim’s return to national team further gained the pace when Shanto and Tamim engaged in a closed door conversation yesterday after the Dhaka Premier League (DPL) match between Abahani Limited and Prime Bank Cricket Club at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium.

Tamim retired from the national team in the last year during the home series against Afghanistan but reversed the decision after 28 hours following the intervention of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. He then played two ODIs against New Zealand but took rest to gain his full fitness. However he thereafter never came back to the national team as he wants some issues to be resolved if the BCB wants to see him in the national jersey again.

“If he comes back to the national team, the people will be happy and obviously the players also will be happy. He retires from T20 but there are still two formats. He can come back to any format of the cricket,” Shanto today said in an event of the Xceramics which appointed him as the Chief Brand Officer.

“Yes we talked yesterday. We talked about cricket. I made everything clear about what I am thinking as the captain. It is difficult to clear everything at this moment and he also seeks time. Whatever we have DPL running at this moment, let the tournament finish first. I also have to think about it further. But what matters most is what he (Tamim) is thinking about his return. He needs to express his desire. Then we can start the next process.”

While Tamim has already retired from T20 cricket, he has no desire to play Test cricket anymore as the five-day cricket needs extreme fitness level, according to a BCB high up.

Bangladesh of late had the shortage of experience in their T20 squad after the retirement of Tamim and Mushfiqur Rahim. But it is unlikely that captain Shanto will want them to return to T20 squad, breaking their retirement.

“I am not thinking about their T20 retirement. The T20 World Cup is approaching fast. At this moment, our team is also stable,” he added.

Even though he termed his T20 side as stable, Shanto wants the fans to tone down their expectation about T20 World Cup.

“From what I have seen that enormous and sometimes excessive talks do the rounds ahead of any World Cup and so expectation gets higher.  I want to urge the fans to tone down the expectation. The fans love Bangladesh cricket but there’s no point of expecting much,” he said.

“We, all players, want to do something special. We want to take the team in a height so that our fans can be proud of us. But it’s not good to keep the expectation very high.”