DHAKA, July 17, 2022 (BSS)— Ending all speculations, Bangladesh opener Tamim Iqbal finally announced his retirement from the T20 International cricket.

He will continue to play ODI cricket, a format in which he is the captain now and Test format.
Tamim Iqbal was on a six-month break from the T20 International cricket which is scheduled to end on July 27. But 10 days before the end of his break, he announced his retirement.

“Please consider me retired from T20Is from today. Thank you, everyone," Tamim wrote on his official Facebook page.

During the ongoing West Indies tour, Tamim had earlier given a Facebook status saying goodbye to T20 cricket. But he deleted that post after two minutes. His deleted post sparked a discussion whether he took his decision to bring an end his T20Is career,

Speculation about Tamim's T20 future began even before the West Indies tour. A day before boarding the flight for the Caribbean tour, he was asked about his decision regarding T20 format.

"I am not given a chance to tell about my plans for T20. Either you tell, or someone else tells. Let that continue (laughter),” Tamim said.

Tamim last played T20 for Bangladesh in March 2020, against Zimbabwe. After that, he withdrew himself from the last T20 World Cup after not playing 12 consecutive T20 matches.

He then explained that due to the lack of practice, he skipped the T20 World Cup but since then, rumors were rife that Tamim will withdraw himself from this format. In total, Tamim has been absent from Bangladesh's T20 for 26 months. In all, he did not play 33 matches.

However, Tamim explained that he didn't get the opportunity to tell his plans about playing or not playing in this format.

 "I have been playing cricket for so long, so I deserve to say what I think and what my plan is but the things is either you give an idea, or someone else comes and says it. When then say about me, then I have nothing to say,” Tamim said without elaborating who this ‘they’ are. But people close to him said, it is the BCB who actually didn’t give Tamim any opportunity to say anything else clearly.

Tamim scored 1758 runs in 78 T20Is and is the only cricketer from Bangladesh to have scored a century in this format against Oman in Dharamshala in the 2016 T20 World Cup. He has also seven half-centuries under his belt but his strike rate (116.96) always raised questions whether he is a capable player for this format.