Bangladesh players should play more franchise cricket: Habibul Bashar

Former Bangladesh captain Habibul Bashar felt that the lack of playing franchise cricket around the world has been a reason for the Bangladesh side’s struggles in the T20 format. Bangladesh failed to qualify for the Super four stages of the Asia Cup 2022 recently and their bilateral assignments ahead of the T20 World Cup 2022 did not go as they would have liked to. 

Senior players like Mushfiqur Rahim have retired from the format while Mahmudullah was dropped from the squad on the back of his low returns. The youngsters Afif Hossain, Hasun Mahmud have been given a go and the results are far from being impressive so far. Speaking of the phase that Bangladesh is going through, Bashar opened up on the importance of playing more franchisee tournaments.  

Bangladesh players are going behind compared to other team’s players: Habibul Bashar 

Bashar felt that the transition period is hurting their results and noted the absence of seniors which has led to regrouping of the side. He further felt that Bangladesh has never produced consistent results in T20 format despite the odd good performances and mentioned the importance of playing enough franchise cricket which is hampering their development.   

“Obviously, Bangladesh is going through a transition period. The seniors aren’t here and they haven’t had the best of times. Now the team has started regrouping again which is one of the reasons. Actually, Bangladesh is not always performing in the T20 format. Yes, there is some success, but not on a consistent basis,” Habibul Bashar on 'BatBricks7 presents Run Ki Runneeti' on CricTracker. 

“One setback for the Bangladesh players is they do not get the opportunity to play franchise cricket. Only Shakib and Fizz (Mustafizur) have been getting the chances to play the IPL or other franchisees tournament. The Bangladesh players only play the BPL (Bangladesh Premier League) which is the nation’s domestic T20 tournament but do not get chances in other tournaments.” 

“They are going behind compared to other team’s players who are playing different formats, different conditions, different teams. They are more confident, they are more experienced and unfortunately, Bangladesh players haven’t played enough T20 cricket to improve. Probably, this is their main downfall,” he added.