Left-arm pacer Mustafizur Rahman was not offered a central contract involving Test cricket because the cricketer doesn’t want to play the format staying in bio-secured bubble as the world fights the Covid-19 pandemic.
Bangladesh Cricket Board's cricket operations committee chairman Akram Khan told the media that Mustafizur informed the board of his decision, and thus the cricketer was offered contract only for white-ball cricket.
BCB following a board meeting Wednesday declared names of 24 cricketers included in the central contract from May-December 2021.
“Mustafizur does not want to play Test cricket at the moment. He informed us that it is becoming difficult for him to play Test cricket staying inside the bio-safety bubble,” said Akram to the media Thursday.
Akram informed that the board respects Mustafizur’s decision and has agreed to the request.
“We [BCB] have taken it positively. He is an important member of our white-ball cricket so we discussed and have agreed to his decision,” Akram informed.
BCB last year introduced central contract to the players for different formats of the game.
The contracts were initially based on red- and white-ball cricket which this year has been turned into contracts for Test, ODI and T20I.
“There are many cricketers who are part of only T20 squad like Nasum [Ahmed], Shamim [Hossain Patwari]. For this reason, we have differentiated the contracts in three formats of cricket. Before it was simply for red- and white-ball cricket,” Akram explained.
BCB did not reveal the salary of the cricketers but it is understood that cricketers under the Test cricket contract will get the highest salary.
The decision has been made to influence the cricketers towards the longest format of the game.
