Sylhet Strikers explain their decision to not give Shanto the captaincy
Despite the recently announced all-format captain Najmul Hossain Shanto being there, it was Mithun who was given the captaincy and that raised plenty of eyebrows.
Sylhet Strikers started the 10th edition of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) tournament off in the worst way possible, with a run of five consecutive losses, but have now started to regain some momentum by winning three of their last four matches.
The side that was led by Mashrafe Mortaza is now being led by Mohammad Mithun after Mashrafe had to leave to fulfil his parliamentary duties.
Despite the recently announced all-format captain Najmul Hossain Shanto being there, it was Mithun who was given the captaincy and that raised plenty of eyebrows.
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With there being no BPL matches on Thursday in Chattogram, Sylhet Strikers coach, former national team player Rajin Saleh spoke to the media and on the decision to not make Shanto the captain.
He explained that the decision came from the team management as they didn't want to burden Shanto with the weight of captaincy.
"This decision was made by the team management and not Shanto. They wanted to give him as much freedom as possible and allow him to express himself in his batting," Saleh said.
That hasn't had the desired effect on his batting though as he has scored just 124 runs and a highest score of 36 in nine innings at an average of 13.77 and strike rate of 96.12.
Saleh feels this "bad patch" will go away soon: "When a player goes through a bad patch, you have to give him a break. He batted at no.3 in the last two games. It's not like he's out of touch. He can get back among the runs soon hopefully."
