DHAKA, July 6, 2021 (BSS)—Bangladesh captain Mominul Haque said that they will wait for the senior opener Tamim Iqbal till the last moment, considering the importance of him in the team in an away Test match.
Tamim sustained a knee injury during the Bangabandhu Dhaka Premier League (DPL) and eventually skipped the super league phase for Prime Bank Cricket Club.
He batted for some times in the second innings of the two-day warm-up game against Zimbabwe Select XI in a bid to check how he felt with batting.
But things looked ominous as the team management couldn’t give the guarantee of his participation in the solitary Test against Zimbabwe even less than 24 hours of the game.
Despite not playing the warm-up game, it is all but sure that Mushfiqur Rahim, who had two double centuries against Zimbabwe will play the Test game, as revealed by head coach Russell Domingo. Mushfiqur in fact is the highest run-getter for Bangladesh against Zimbabwe with 846 runs in 17 innings of nine Test matches.
But the head coach was doubtful about Tamim and ahead of the game, skipper Mominul Haque himself couldn’t make it clear.
“Tamim bhai is a very important cricket for us. So we will wait for him till the last moment after which we’ll take a decision on him,” Mominul said during an online press conference today.
But when Bangladesh is dubbed as favorite against Zimbabwe, the dilemma and wait for Tamim’s participation raised a question of whether the Tigers are not confident enough to win.
Mominul said since the injury didn’t rule him out entirely from the game, they are just taking time for his recovery and match fitness.
“The wait is only for his injury (because it didn’t rule him out). Tamim Iqbal is an important cricketer for Bangladesh and especially he is very important for me. Therefore we are taking his matter seriously and we are waiting about him.”
