Captain to be named the day before the match?
Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president AHM Mustafa Kamal bowled a beamer on Monday against those who were rallying for the pressing issue of captaincy with the ICC World Cup 2011 just two months away.
The BCB boss brashly announced that they were not in any hurry to announce the name of the captain while talking with reporters during a road show programme for the showcase event styled "Catch Bangladesh Catch".
"Is there a match tomorrow?" questioned Kamal sarcastically when asked when they were going to announce the captain for the World Cup. He also added: "You [the journalists] do your work and let us do ours."
It may be mentioned here that Shakib Al Hasan had been named captain only for the Zimbabwe series in a dramatic fashion, which only created chaos as Shakib himself had expressed disappointment over the decision. The world's number one all-rounder had at that time raised question about the role of the skipper in team selection.
Many thought that the game's governing body in the country would take lessons from that incident, but it seems that they are not ready to give much importance to the captaincy issue while selecting the team, despite the role being an integral part in cricket. Rather, the BCB boss demeaned the role by saying, "We must pick the team first and then the captaincy issue will come. Team is first, then the captain."
"What benefit will you get by announcing the captain now?" said Kamal when it was mentioned that a captain has to do his homework with his team and thus would require a certain amount of time for that.
"We will issue a press release when we announce the captain. We have our own plan. We didn't find any reason to talk about the captaincy issue in the board meeting at this moment. There are some other sensitive issues and we must do everything professionally. It's a serious issue and a hard job," continued Kamal.
"You can't easily pick someone because we don't have such a player. We gave the job to Shakib because Mashrafe [bin Mortaza] was not available," he added.
Kamal however dismissed notions of the age-old club issue that could be playing a role in the decision-making.
Apparently, Kamal was not happy with the team's success under the leadership of Shakib, who led from the front to clinch a 4-0 series victory over New Zealand, which was followed by a 3-1 success against Zimbabwe in the latest ODI series.
Kamal also came down heavily on the team's performance despite the series victories. "Our batting was not good and bowling too. You can only praise the fielding. We are not satisfied with the performance. We must think about it. Our batting was also not good against New Zealand although we won the series," he said expressing his disappointment.
"There was no consistency in the performance. You can't find any player who was consistent in four games played against Zimbabwe," he added.
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