Mominul Refuses to Comment on Mahmudullah’s Test Retirement Issue

Mominul Haque, the Test captain of Bangladesh termed the retirement issue of Mahmudullah Riyad from the Test cricket as completely his personal issue and also refused to make further comment on this.

“I actually don’t know much about it. I think it’s his personal issue and I am not the right person to comment on it,” Mominul said after the match as Mahmudullah’s retirement issue created confusion, reports BSS.

Mahmudullah also didn’t clear the matter by himself.

Even though Mominul said he doesn’t know much about Mahmudullah’s retirement issue, the Bangladesh team gave the senior player a ‘guard of honour’ just ahead of the fifth and final day’s game started.

The commentators also said that the “guard of honour’ was given as Mahmudullah would retire from Test cricket after the one-off Test against Zimbabwe, which was his 50th Test.

Bangladesh won the Test by 220 runs and Mahmudullah was adjudged man of the match for his 150 not out in the first innings. It was just his first man of the match award in Test cricket.

Mahmudullah helped Bangladesh to post a mammoth 468 runs in the first innings, sharing a second largest 191-run partnership with Taskin Ahmed for the ninth wicket stand.

On day three of the game after this ton, he reportedly told his teammates in the dressing room that he finally proved his worth in the Test cricket and now wants to retire from this format.

When it was just rumour, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hassan Papon fuelled it further, saying his decision as shocking and surprising in the midst of a Test, which he thought would disturb the team’s environment.

Mahmudullah later on that day though talked during the post match but didn’t reveal anything about his retirement. However the ‘guard of honour’ from the teammates fuelled the talk about his retirement further.

Mahmudullah’s Test career seemed to be over after he was going through a patchy form in the last 10 Test innings and also was dismissed like an apprentice cricketer quite a few times, which left the team in troublesome situation in the Test match against Afghanistan and Pakistan. The defeat against Afghanistan, the new Test nation, was a black mark in Bangladesh’s cricket.

He was only called up in this format after 18 months following the injury scare of Tamim Iqbal and Mushfiqur Rahim. After Tamim was ruled out of the Test, he made the cut in the final XI.

It was however his 50th Test. He scored 2914 runs with five centuries and 16 half-centuries in this format.