Bangladesh fast bowler Mustafizur Rahman has decided to step back from Test cricket for some time citing the long periods of quarantine and bio-bubble fatigue as the reasons.
Since cricket resumed post the initial COVID-19 lockdowns, the bio-bubbles have become a norm and Mustafizur has already expressed his discomfort in spending a lot of time inside bio-secure bubbles.
Mustafizur has been spending most of his time in bio-bubbles and even admitted it became extremely difficult for him to play continuous cricket in bio-bubbles, hence he requested the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) not to consider him for Test selection for some time.
He was missing from the all-format contract with the left-arm pacer has been given the T20I and ODI contracts by the BCB in the newly released format-wise contract on September 1.
BCB cricket operations chairman Akram Khan also confirmed Mustafizur's request and said that they were not considering the pacer for Tests after his request.
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Akram told Cricbuzz on Friday (September 3): “Mustafizur is not interested to take part in Tests at the moment. He told us that it is difficult for him to concentrate on Tests, playing it under bio-bubble and so he does not want to take part in Tests at the moment.”
He added, “We have taken that decision very positively and have discussed it and accepted his request because he is a very important player in the white-ball format. We have introduced a format-wise contract because there are cricketers like Nasum and Shamim who are only part of T20s. Earlier if it was white ball that implied ODIs and T20s but now a new group is coming up who are playing only in T20s.”
Akram concluded, “We have made different payment slabs based upon performance and we kept that so that there is competition between cricketers. When a cricketer is coming to Test from T20s there is a raise and similarly, when he is coming to ODIs there is some raise so players will be eager to perform so that he can be considered across formats.”
Noteworthy, Mustafizur is currently playing in the T20I series against New Zealand at home and is soon expected to move to another bubble for Rajasthan Royals (RR) in the Indian Premier League (IPL 2021) in the UAE and then will be entering another bubble for Bangladesh during the ICC T20 World Cup 2021.
(With Cricbuzz Inputs)
