Newly appointed national chief selector Faruk Ahmed’s two-year tenure began with the T20 Challenge Series between the national and the ‘A’ team that ended yesterday. The Mushfiqur Rahim led national team was convincingly beaten in the series by 0-3 and though the result raised many eyebrows, Faruk thought the ‘A’ team deserved the wins for playing better cricket.
“You cannot say ‘A’ team was a weak side or a second tier team because there were at least 8 to 9 cricketers who played for the national team in the recent past. So it was actually two national teams playing against each other,” Faruk told the media at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium yesterday.
The chief of the selection panel stated that the matches played in the series were nothing more than practice matches to them. “However it would have been better if the national side could have managed one or two wins. A team played very well in all the three matches and they got the result and won all the three games very comfortably,” added Faruk.
“I think Nasir (Hossain) as captain and Mominul’s (Hoque) presence was an important fact that boosted them (‘A’ team). I believe this kind of games is always of help to the cricketers,” he added and further pointed out the lack of strategies in the national team.
“I think national team lacked with batting strategies in the first two games and today (yesterday) they failed to bowl well because of the wicket. Congratulations to the ‘A’ team for the 3-0 win,” said Faruk.
The former national skipper informed that the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) plans to hold few more tournaments of this kind in future ahead of the National Cricket League which is scheduled to start by the last week of December.
The selection chief was particularly happy with batsman-leg spinner Sabbir Rahman and said, “He performed in both the edition of BPL (Bangladesh Premier League). To be honest we don’t have many Twenty20 specialists, but we found Sabbir to do well in all the three departments. He will be considered for sure.”
Sabbir scored 58 runs in the series with the highest of an unbeaten 37 in the last game while he was economical with the ball though he failed to pick any wicket.
