Shakib to lead Tigers in T20Is

Ace all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan has been named Bangladesh's T20 captain following Mashrafe Bin Mortaza's retirement from the shortest format of the game, Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hassan announced yesterday.

This will be the 30-year-old's second stint as a full-time captain. At 22, he became the youngest player to captain Bangladesh when he was handed the responsibility in July 2009, but he was relieved of his duties in August 2011.

The decision to reappoint him, which was already on the cards, was officially announced following a board meeting at the BCB headquarters in Mirpur and thus, Bangladesh now have three captains in the three formats, with Mushfiqur Rahim leading the Test side and Mashrafe captaining the ODI side.

"As you all know, Mashrafe is not the captain of Bangladesh's T20 team anymore. There's still a lot of time until our next T20 game. We are probably going to play a few in the Pakistan series, which is some time away. But we still decided on a new captain," Hassan told reporters.

"From now on, Shakib Al Hasan will lead the T20 team. Since he was the vice-captain, his name came by default. There were other names as well for this post, but at the moment he seems to be ahead of everyone. His recent performances have been amazing," added Hassan.

Shakib is by far Bangladesh's best T20 player. He has played in T20 leagues all over the world and had captained Bangladesh in this format for four matches, but was on the losing end on all four occasions.

Shakib is currently ranked as the number one T20I all-rounder in the world and also occupies the top spot in the other two formats.

He has scored more than 3,500 T20 runs and taken more than 250 wickets and is regularly hunted in the domestic T20 leagues around the world.

He is currently in India taking part in the Indian Premier League and is expected to join the national team ahead of their tri-nation series in Ireland next month.

Mashrafe is expected to play till the 2019 World Cup and as of now, Shakib is the leading player to take over from Mashrafe. Back in 2009, Shakib was a young and inexperienced player.

However, over the years, the all-rounder has grown a lot as a cricketer and it will be interesting to see how he approaches the role right now.