'All of you know more about cricket than me': Nazmul tells journalists to pick Bangladesh's best XI for World Cup
The BCB president said he wants to understand what the journalists feel about the team, and why and how they would select the players they chose.
Nazmul Hassan was going out to talk to the media after the prize distribution of the physically challenged cricket tournament at Mirpur's Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium when the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president turned around and said to a journalist, "I want all of you to give your own Bangladesh team's for the World Cup. Not the squad but the starting XI."
The BCB President responded jokingly by saying that in response to questions of whether Mahmudullah Riyad would be in the World Cup team or not.
The BCB president said he wants to understand what the journalists feel about the team, and why and how they would select the players they chose.
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The ODI World Cup will be held in India this October and even though there are still four months left, there is a lot of questions about the Bangladesh team from journalists and who will be in the team
Most of the questions revolve around Mahmudullah, who was left out of the last Ireland series while there are also questions about Afif Hossain.
When the topic of Mahmudullah batting at number seven in the World Cup came up, Nazmul Hassan asked the journalists for the eleven and said, "Now the media is talking about cricket the most. We are happy with that. You guys are so involved, it helps us too. We are also happy with social media, but many people there seem to have no idea about cricket and are still commenting."
"All of you here know more about cricket than I do, there are a lot of people. I am thinking of asking you to name who makes the best XI. Then see what you say. Wouldn't that be great? I'd get to know what you think, who should be played." added the BCB president.
"If you ask me, Tamim (Iqbal), Litton (Das), (Najmul Hossain) Shanto, (Towhid) Hridoy, Mushfiqur (Rahim), Shakib (Al Hasan) are six names any one of you would leave out. Naim Sheikh and (Anamul Haque) Bijoy are also performing well domestically while opening and one of them may come into the squad as a backup opener in case of any injuries."
In response to a question on whether it would be right to keep a senior cricketer like Mahmudullah in the World Cup squad, the BCB chief said, "We have to get out of that mindset. Afif and Mahmudullah can both be in the squad as batters. (Yasir Ali) Rabbi did not perform well after coming back from injury. If you think about bowling Afif and Mosaddek (Hossain) will be ahead here. Mahmudullah can do it too. If you want to think about fielding too, I think Afif will be ahead of them. Mosaddek may also be better than Riyad. What do you want, I think one day I will call you and ask for your XIs."
