Bangladesh’s opener Tamim Iqbal announces T20I retirement

Bangladesh veteran batter Tamim Iqbal has decided to hang his boots from T20I cricket with immediate effect, the player announced on his Facebook account on Sunday. Iqbal, who led Bangladesh to a convincing 3-0 win over the West Indies in the ODI series, made the announcement after the Tigers won the third match by four wickets on Saturday.

Iqbal was awarded the Player of the Series in the three-match contest after scoring 117 runs at an average of 58.50.

Meanwhile, Iqbal had decided to take a break from T20I cricket in January 2022 in order to concentrate more on Tests and ODIs though he had played in the domestic tournament. In fact, the left-handed opener had also not played in the T20I World Cup 2021.

“Please consider me retired from T20Is from today. Thank you, everyone,” Tamim wrote in Bangla.

The experienced left-hander played 78 T20Is and amassed 1758 runs at an average of 24.08 and a strike rate of 117.2 that included one century and seven fifties.

In fact, he is the solitary Bangladesh batter to score a century in the T20I format. The southpaw had scored 103 runs against Oman in the T20I World Cup 2016 at Dharamshala. The talisman had scored 295 runs in six matches of that edition of the T20 World Cup at an average of 73.75 and a strike rate of 142.51 and had finished as the highest run-getter in the tournament.

After clean-sweep the Windies, Iqbal said, “We have been a very good side at home, we have now won back-to-back away from home. Very proud of the team. The bowlers utilized the conditions really well. We are missing three players from the top-five, it was a great opportunity for these guys. Nurul batted really well and that’s great for Bangladesh cricket. Taijul didn’t get a a game throughout the series and when he got a game, he stepped up.”