Veteran Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan has dismissed allegations of a rift with opener Tamim Iqbal, stating that BCB President Najmul Hasan Papon’s statement affected their connection. Shakib Al Hasan also claimed that he was constantly on speaking terms with Tamim.
In a February 2023 interview with Cricbuzz, Papon mentioned an uncomfortable dressing room climate highlighting a rift between Shakib and Tamim. He claimed that he had spoken with the two and found it impossible to resolve their disputes. However, he was assured that it would not affect the team’s results.
What Shakib Al Hasan Said
Bongo aired a documentary where Shakib spoke on the matter blaming outsiders for making issue of nothing.
He stated,
“This thing [the relationship between Tamim and Shakib] came to focus after Papon [Nazmul Hasan] bhai spoke about it and it created a lot of problems on the relationship and created this situation. I think some people had the intention to keep it [the rift] in focus and tried to make it as the main point [of discussion] rather than the cricketing side. For quite some time we were not talking a lot. [But] it is not right that we were not on talking terms.”
“The thing is, there was a time when we used to be together all the time but that relationship was not there for quite some time. It is very natural… I got married and he got married, we were staying separately in different places and so there was very lesser time between us.”
The relationship between Tamim and the BCB came under scrutiny ahead of the 2023 World Cup in India as one of the top executives allegedly ordered him to bat down the order. Shakib later on called the seasoned opener ‘childish’ for failing to adapt to the team’s demands.
Shakib also assured that there was nothing between him and Tamim that could affect the harmony of the team. He said,
“There is nothing like making it good or bad [as far as the relationship with Tamim is concerned]. Till we played together and shared the dressing room together, I don’t think any incident took place that would harm the team. We tried to contribute whether we were talking or not, there was no kind of problem inside the field or in the dressing room.”
Tamim took retirement from T20 cricket in 2022 although he plays the other two formats. In July last year he shockingly announced retirement from International cricket only to withdraw that in 24 hours.