No place for Mashud in Tigers’ WC squad

The national selectors have decided to take a second-rate wicketkeeper to the Cricket World Cup in the West Indies ignoring the safe and trusted gloves of Khaled Mashud.

The panel, led by former national captain Faruque Ahmed, maintained their inconsistency over team selection when they decided to keep Mashud behind for his lack of form with the bat. Young Mushfiqur Rahim, whose keeping is nowhere near that of Mashud's, got the nod just after two reasonable knocks in the recently concluded Zimbabwe tour.

Although the demand of modern day cricket is a hard-hitting wicketkeeper-batsman at number six or seven, neither player meets the criteria but Rahim's success came as a top-order batsmen where he did the job of a grafter. If the selectors think him as a batsman, they could have easily picked up their 'blue-eyed boy' beside Mashud.

Although the selectors had rejected slow batters in the past, their hypocritical decision of picking recalling Javed Omer and Rajin Saleh beside Rahim became as sheer surprise.

Naturally, the 15-member squad, which was announced on Tuesday, raised more questions than answers.

"It was not an easy task for us to take the decision against a proven campaigner like (Khaled) Mashud when he is still the number one wicketkeeper in the country. After a long discussion, we selected young Rahim in place of Mashud as we preferred a batsman-wicketkeeper in the team, rather than a keeper who could bat a bit," said chief selector Faruque Ahmed in a volatile press conference.

"We ignored him (Mashud) on performance grounds as we thought that Mushfiqur was a much better option as a batsman which he also proved in the just ended Zimbabwe tour."

He defended the exclusion of Mashud which shattered the former national skipper's dream of making his third successive World Cup appearance after playing in England in 1999 and leading the side in 2003 in South Africa.
They also took a u-turn from their erstwhile selection policy to maintain the controversy trend of picking up the World Cup squad when they made three changes from the team that played in Tigers' 3-1 series victory against Zimbabwe.

Tushar Imran and Mehrab Hossain were dropped to pave way for in-and-outs Rajin and Javed while left-arm paceman Syed Rasel was recalled to replace seaming all-rounder Mohammad Sharif.

Faruque faced a volley of questions regarding the selection but only offered contradictory replies as they considered Javed and Rajin's experiences as plus point in the showpiece in West Indies, which however was not the case for Mashud.

"We tried a lot of combinations in the recent past series but couldn't find according to our expectations and that's why we went for two experienced players. Javed is proven in the opening slot while Rajin can bat at any position. Their recent domestic performance has also encouraged us before taking the decision," he explained.

Believe it or not, Javed almost came from nowhere as he missed all the matches for the Tigers since he made his last appearance in the third one-day of the five-match series in Zimbabwe in July-August while Rajin played his last game against Zimbabwe in the ICC Champions Trophy in India last year.

It was told time and again that the two particular batsmen are not good enough with their limited shots for the shorter version of the games when the Tigers are thinking of victory rather than only playing out the fifty overs. Interestingly the same people expressed their satisfaction over the arrival of left-handed opener Mehrab but Faruque said that the young man could not fulfil their expectation.

"His performance was not too bad but he failed to fulfil our expectation in nine games," Faruque explained.

But the fact is Javed and Rajin's performances in their last ten games were not anything exceptional to give them the nod. Javed has only one fifty and Rajin one century, against Kenya, in their last ten games.

When asked whether it was possible to pick two wicketkeepers when they had already given Mushfiqur Rahim a chance in the two Tests as a batsman where Mashud stood behind the stumps.

"India and Australia did it but it does not suit our combination," said Faruque adding that it was not relevant to comment on the issue whether their personal bitter relationship with Mashud played the vital role behind the harsh decision.

Faruque also explained their decision behind the inclusion of hard-hitting opener Tamim Iqbal.

"We believe that he has the ability to surprise any team in a given day and we thought that he could have been a good choice as a hard-hitting opener," he defended.

Although there was lot of debate on the very ordinary pace of Rasel, the chief selector said that they discussed the name of Forhad Reza and Mohammad Sharif but brought back the left-arm pacer to bring variety in the pace attack.

"Yes, his pace is a concern but he has the ability to seaming the ball. Actually we wanted to bring a variety in the pace attack," he said.

SQUAD

Habibul Bashar (captain), Shahriar Nafees, Tamim Iqbal, Aftab Ahmed, Sakib Al Hasan, Mohammad Ashraful, Mushfiqur Rahim (wicketkeeper), Mohammad Rafique, Abdur Razzak, Mashrafee-bin-Mortuza, Shahadat Hossain, Tapash Baisya, Syed Rasel, Rajin Saleh and Javed Omar.