Najmul Hossain Shanto appointed Bangladesh captain for all three formats

Bangladesh have appointed Najmul Hossain Shanto as their all-format captain. The 25-year-old has been named Bangladesh skipper for one year, BCB president Nazmul Hassan said. Shanto has led the Bangla Tigers already but will assume the full-time role for a year with T20 World Cup approaching. 

It came as a surprise to see him take the T20I reins too, considering the fact that Shakib Al Hasan had a desire to lead the team in the T20 World Cup 2024. Shakib had built a team for the upcoming tournament. The BCB has reportedly named Gazi Ashraf Hossain as their new chief selector, which brings an end to the eight-year term of Minhajul Abedin as the chief selector. Hannan Sarkar is also appointed as a new selector, while Habibul Bashar also leaves his selector’s post.

Notably, the BCB chief Hassan said that the board had had Shakib the first choice captain but his current eye issue forced them to name a new captain. 

“We have elected (Najmul Hossain) Shanto as captain in all three formats. We discussed the national team captaincy for the longest time in this meeting. We spoke to Shakib, who told us that his eye problem hasn’t gone away. We are not sure of his availability in the Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe home series. We also have to consider the T20 World Cup that’s coming up,” Hassan told media after a board meeting in Mirpur.

“Shakib is definitely our first choice. But we don’t want to stay in any uncertainty. We didn’t want to delay the decision. We had the World Cup in mind so to run the team smoothly, we had to pick a captain,” he added.

Shakib had said before the World Cup 2023 that he would step down from ODI captaincy and also hinted he might not play Tests. However, he had a desire to lead the team in the T20 World Cup. Notably, the BCB has made wholesome changes to the selection panel with the appointment of Gazi Ashraf the new chief selector. Only, Abdur Razzak stays in the selection panel with the board removing the now ex-chief selector Minhajul Abedin, and another selector Habibul Bashar.