The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has finally issued an official statement on the sudden removal of former Bangladesh skipper Najmul Hossain Shanto from his role as the ODI captain.
This seems to have made an impact on the rather young player from Bangladesh, since many in the cricket fraternity feel that this led Shanto to step down from the Test captaincy as well. Though BCB chairman Nazmul Abedin begs to differ on this opinion.
Finally, on a show called Saturday Night, he revealed that the idea of Shanto’s snub is baseless, since the BCB took the decisions based on the current situation, as Bangladesh did not have an ODI skipper at that time, considering Shanto’s tenure ended with the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy.
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BCB drops official statement on Bangladesh ODI captaincy
The BCB cricket operations chairman, Nazmul Abedin, had to face immense criticism after dropping Najmul Hossain Shanto and picking Mehidy Hasan Miraz as his successor. All the Bangladesh fans seemed to have anticipated an extension of tenure for the former skipper.
“We did not have any ODI captain after the Champions Trophy. It is not true that Shanto was removed from his captaincy. In fact, there was no captain,” Nazmul said in the show.
“Shanto might have assumed he would lead in the next series since he was the previous captain. There’s nothing wrong in thinking that. But the board may have had other plans. Yes, the board could have appointed Shanto again, but that would have required a separate announcement,” he explained on the show that airs on Jamuna TV.
He further confirmed that since they did not have a captain at that time, there was no question of holding any discussions with Shanto. A decision was made and communicated to Shanto, since he was the previous captain.
“The captaincy decision was taken in a meeting, and it was my responsibility to inform both Shanto and Mehidy Hasan Miraz. There were no other terms or conditions involved. That’s why I informed Shanto first,” said the BCB chairman.
BCCI remains firm with the boycott decision, while BCB prepares to host the ACC meeting
The future of the Asia Cup 2025 relies entirely on the meeting that is to be held at Dhaka between all member nations of the Asian Cricket Council. However, the supposed host nation for the continental championship, India, has called for the boycott of the event.
Due to the current political unrest in Bangladesh, the BCCI denied sending its officials to Dhaka on the 24th of July for the scheduled annual general body meeting of the ACC. However, despite repeated pleas, the PCB chief, Mohsin Nazqi, now head of ACC, is pressuring BCCI to participate in the meeting in Dhaka.
Bangladesh to keep Litton Das as skipper for the Asia Cup 2025?
Though nothing has been decided yet, the Asia Cup might get cancelled as well. Bangladesh is still gearing up for a challenging contest in the continental championship.
With the Asia Cup 2025 to be played in the shorter format of the game, Bangladesh might think of Litton Das to lead them in the multi-team championship, since he is their most successful skipper recently.
Litton also led Bangladesh to a historic away series win against Sri Lanka in the T20Is. Sri Lanka is the defending champion of the T20 Asia Cup.
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