DHAKA (Reuters) – All-rounder Shakib Al Hasan will lead Bangladesh at this year’s World Cup in India after being named captain of their one-day international (ODI) squad on Friday.
Bangladesh needed a new ODI captain after opener Tamim Iqbal stepped aside earlier this month citing a back injury, which would keep him out of the Asia Cup beginning in Multan on Aug. 30.
“Shakib Al Hasan is the captain for the Asia Cup, New Zealand series and World Cup,” Bangladesh Cricket Board president Nazmul Hassan told reporters in Dhaka.
“He is the obvious choice. Who else can lead? But we had to talk to him before appointing him. Nobody should think anything else. Shakib is the captain. He was always the main choice.”
Shakib is now the Bangladesh captain in all three formats and Hassan said the BCB would ask the 36-year-old, once he was back from the Lankan Premier League, if he was fine with the workload.
“We have to know his long-term plan. I spoke to him on the phone yesterday. But it is better if we talk to him in person since he is busy with a franchise league currently,” Hassan said.
“We will also talk about which format he will keep leading, whether it is all three formats or one or two of them.”
After the Asia Cup, Bangladesh will play a home ODI series against New Zealand in September before travelling to India for the ODI World Cup beginning on Oct. 5.
(Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi; editing by Tomasz Janowski)
