I was surprised to know Tamim doesn't want to play T20s: Khaled Mahmud

Nazmul Hassan Papon, the president of the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB), on Saturday revealed that Tamim Iqbal is not interested to play the T20 format of cricket. His comment came hours after Tamim struck his second consecutive half-century in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) T20 tournament. Despite his effort, Minister Group Dhaka lost all of those two matches. Papon's sudden comment surprised many people, Khaled Mahmud Sujon was no exception either. 

Talking to the media on Sunday, Sujon said that he was surprised to learn that Tamim is not interested in T20 cricket anymore. 

"Yes, I was a bit surprised to know Tamim doesn't want to play T20s anymore. I talked to him before touring New Zealand and wanted to know his reasons. But we didn't discuss much about it later on. Papon bhai has already said, probably Tamim talked to him in details," Sujon said.

Citing this as a personal matter, Sujon said that cricket won't stop for anyone. But he expects all the top players to be ready for the team since 2022 has a lot of cricket in the bag for the Tigers.

"It is definitely his personal matter. We can't pressure anyone if he doesn't want to play. We have to look forward, cricket won't stop for anybody," he added.

Tamim last played T20 International cricket in 2020 and then was out of the action for a long time to recover from his injury. However he withdrew his name from the T20 World Cup squad by showing the reason that those who played regularly in this format, should be included in the squad ahead of him.

Rumour was rife that T20 captain Mahmudullah Riyad doesn't want Tamim to be included into the World Cup squad since he was out of the game for a long time, which angered the opener so much so that he withdrew his name. Both Tamim and Riyad refuted this rumour.

Meanwhile, Tamim's slow approach in T20 format was also criticised vehemently for some time now. Critics said his slow batting put pressure on the middle order to increase the run rate and the urge forced Bangladesh's collapse more often in this format.