Former Bangladesh captain Tamim Iqbal has opened up on returning to his international career after defeating Comilla Victorians at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium.
Tamim Iqbal on his Comeback
Bangladesh Cricket has been going through a lot of changes since Tamim Iqbal reversed his retirement decision, but did not play in the ODI World Cup in India last November.
He was expected to discuss with BCB president Nazmul Hasan on his international career but was held for the moment.
“I would like to say one thing clearly. For me to come back, a lot of things have to be right otherwise there’s no point for me to just come back and play,” Tamim said.
“I am at a stage of my career where I would probably play for another two years. So I need to tell them such things and since I did not have a final talk with them, it won’t be appropriate for me to comment here,” he said.
“I haven’t spoken with him (new chief selector) yet. I was in communication with Jalal Bhai (Jalal Yunus). I was available for a talk but unfortunately, we didn’t get the opportunity. I will be travelling abroad tomorrow morning and hopefully, after I return, we will sit,” he said.
Tamim was the highest run scorer in the BPL 2024 season with 492 runs in 15 matches. He was also named as the Player of the tournament but said that it was not to prove anything here.
“During my international career, I have gone through lots of ups and downs and there were times when there were a lot of talks like whether I would be in the team or not and I wanted to prove people wrong and actually by trying to do that I learnt that I was building pressure on myself.
“From cricket, the most important thing that I learnt is that whenever I tried to do that (trying to prove something to someone), I put pressure on myself and I didn’t understand it.”
“In the next match, when I was going to bat, I was full of pressure. There were also times when the same talks were there and I didn’t take it seriously.”
“This is the learning from 17 years of my career and I just tried to do it this time. I know if I didn’t score there would be a lot of talks but that’s fine we had a fantastic environment to take care of it,” he said.
“Look if I was thinking that I need to give an answer in that case I might not have done it (becoming the leading run-getter of BPL this year). Whatever I have done is there for everyone to see,” he said.
“What I wanted was to create a very good team environment,” he said about his BPL team.
“Our team environment was unbelievable and everyone’s contributions, including overseas stars, were important. There were doubts, even amongst us, on whether we would qualify but just because of the team environment, we could do it,” he said.
“I have been through a lot last couple of months. I talk about the environment because I didn’t want to come into one, where everyone is not together.
Creating that environment was the biggest challenge. If you ask me why we won that trophy, it’s because we created that environment where everyone played a part and they were happy for each other,” he added.
“Certainly winning a trophy is great but this time there was a different challenge there were young cricketers like Soumya or Miraj and there were senior cricketers like Riyad(Mahmudullah) bhai and Mushfiq (Mushfiqur Rahim).
They have served this nation for a long time but they didn’t get the trophy, so I had this wish that if Allah gave us this trophy, I would dedicate it to them,” he said.
“At times we don’t give everyone their due credit, During the start of the tournament I asked Mushfiqur if he could take care of things like bowling changes and field placement.
He was very involved and I must thank him and if anyone deserves the trophy more than me, it was Mushfiq because he did a lot of good things,” he said.
Recently, Mushfiqur Rahman indicated that he did not retire from T20Is of his own and Tamim Iqbal thinks that it would benefit the national side if Rahman returns for T20.
“If he (Mushfiqur) decides to make a comeback .., there are several examples of legendary cricketers who played cricket after coming back from retirement and the way he batted if he decides to make a comeback (in T20Is) it will benefit Bangladesh and nothing can be better than that,” he concluded.
Coming to the national side, Bangladesh is set to host Sri Lanka in a three-match T20I and ODI series and a Two-match test series starting next week.
Both sides will be playing in the first T20I on March 04 at Sylhet International Cricket Stadium.
