Unusual birthday gift for Tamim

Yesterday was Tamim Iqbal's birthday and the dashing opener passed the day quietly. He however got a unique gift from Shoeb Ali, a Bangladesh fan touring with the team in Sri Lanka, on his 24th birthday at the Taj Samudera Hotel. The 23-year-old Shoeb, who is already a popular face in Bangladesh cricket because of his unwavering support and chants during any Bangladesh match, bought two parrots to give his favourite player as a birthday gift.
“I thought about it before leaving the country. I did it just out of love,” said the cricket-mad fan.
Tamim was happy to have received the unusual gift. “I released the two birds as per his wish.”
The left-hander however was looking forward to the three-match ODI series. “Everyone is looking forward to the one-day series because you know this is a format which suits us most. We always have a chance in one-day cricket.”
“Everybody has their individual plans and if we can execute our plans we can be the successful. We are eagerly waiting to play the first match. The team is in a very good mood after the Test series,” said Tamim.
Bangladesh will go to Hambantota from Colombo today to play the first two ODIs on March 23 and March 25. After that they will fly to Kandy to play the third match on March 28 and the lone T20I on March 31.
Bangladesh go into the one-day series with happy memories as they won their last battle against Sri Lanka in the Asia Cup and more importantly, they won their last series 3-2 against West Indies at home. Tamim however was not ready to predict the outcome of the series based on previous successes.
“We have to make sure that we do the right things in the middle and it would be unwise to think about the result,” said Tamim.