'We took this decision after team management's agreement': Nannu on dropping Riyad from WC squad
"We have total respect for Mahmudullah Riyad. He won us a number of matches," Nannu said at the press conference.
After scoring that half-century against Papua New Guinea in the last T20 World Cup, Mahmudullah Riyad has been terribly out of form in the shorter version of the game. He only averaged 16.54 in this version in the 11 matches he played after that match.
He was highly criticised for his batting approach in the past few series and eventually he was dropped from the upcoming T20 World Cup which the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) announced on Wednesday.
Mahmudullah's exclusion was imminent. It was a hot topic prior to BCB's World Cup squad selection. And BCB's chief selector, Minhajul Abedin Nannu stated that the decision to exclude him from the squad was taken after the team management along with the new technical consultant agreed.
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"We have total respect for Mahmudullah Riyad. He won us a number of matches," Nannu said at the press conference.
"We have a new technical consultant, we have some plans regarding that. We are going in a different direction for the next year. Every one of the team management agreed to drop Riyad for that," he added.
Bangladesh's new technical Sridharan Sriram said he had a conversation with Riyad and it 'went well'.
"It is never an easy conversation. He is the most capped T20 player in Bangladesh. I have the utmost respect for him. I have to be the bad man to have the conversation. I think it went well," said Sriram.
Mahmudullah was 'rested' from the last T20I series against Zimbabwe but he was later called on after Nurul Hasan Sohan got injured.
Mahmudullah, who has been playing in this edition since 2007, has so far played 121 matches, the highest for Bangladesh. His future in this edition has become uncertain after this exclusion from the World Cup squad.
