Indian Cricket League (ICL) 2008: Habibul Bashar Talks about his Retirement
It is now known to all that 14 Bangladeshi cricketers led by former Captain Sachin Tendulkar joined Indian Cricket League (ICL) to form Dhaka Warriors in the second season of ICL, due to start from 10 October 2008. Habibul Bashar, who will lead Dhaka Warriors in the Indian Cricket League (ICL) has recently talked about his retirement from international cricket and the decision to embrace the ICL offers.
Habibul Bashar, most successful captain of Bangladesh team, has said that negligence of cricket board as well as coach Jamie Siddons was one of the reasons to get into retirement. He blamed cricket board for their phase out policy that saw the seniors like Javed Omar, Mohammed Rafique, Khaled Masud, Bashar hilself losing the places in the squad within very short time. Though Bashar was later recalled, he was not regular in the team.
Cricinfo reported:
“Towards the end of my international career, I became a lonely figure. I didn’t command the same respect from the guys,” he was quoted as saying in the Times of India. “I would sit alone in the dressing room. During critical situations, nobody would come to me for any suggestion, though I was the senior-most guy. A feeling crept in that you were no longer required.”
“The trouble started after the India series that followed the World Cup. Suddenly, the board and the team management went for a complete overhaul,” Bashar said. “Introducing five or six juniors simultaneously at the international level is foolish. I sincerely hope the BCCI uses the ‘phase-out policy’ in a better way than the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB).”
Habibul Bashar has clearly pointed his finger to the BCCI for their similar phase-out policy towards to the seniors in the team. Bashar also said that he felt sad to have been banned by the cricket board after playing for the country for so many years.
Well, to be honest with you, I mostly agree with Habibul Bashar on a number of reasons. Bringing out new faces in the teams have become a fashion for both BCB and BCCI. Both the boards just want their seniors to make way for the new faces without having any plan to give the newcomers get some chances to gain exposure playing alongside the seniors.
It is now the fact that Bangladesh cricket team could not show enough success in test cricket since winning the test status. Now, after more than ten years, the progress of Bangladesh team is not quite satisfactory and one of the big reasons behind it is BCB’s fashion to bring new faces in the side. Players like Akram Khan, Aminul Islam, Minhazul Abedin should have played for at leat three to four more years in test cricket and by that time, the talented newcomers like Al Shahriar Rokon would have been matured enough to play for the national team. The same thing goes to BCCI as well. Before Sourav Ganguly’s reign as captain, a number of newcomers got into the Indian team at a very early age and after few games they were rooted out to make way for another bunch of new faces. It continued for a long time and created a big gap between the seniors as well as the young players.
