Soumya’s omission a result of ‘chaos’
The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) had on Sunday disclosed the names of 16 players for the new central contract after its meeting, but it raised many eyebrows that Soumya Sarkar was not on the list. Everyone was curious to know about the reason behind the exclusion of the left-hander, especially as he has been a regular member of the national team for quite some time.
If Soumya's exclusion shocked many, then what chief selector Minhajul Abedin revealed yesterday about missing his name in the BCB's contract list was nothing short of a big surprise. "This was simply a typing mistake. We are going to send his name by correcting the list. BCB's media department will issue you a press release soon," Minhajul told the Daily Star yesterday.
BCB had mistakenly excluded the cricketer's name from the list and interestingly it had only come to the selectors' attention when reporters inquired about it in the afternoon yesterday, although different media outlets had raised questions about Soumya's absence in yesterday's newspapers. In the last year, Soumya had played in 25 of the 30 matches the Tigers have played in all three formats.
Minhajul also said that Soumya would be given a white-ball contract. "Soumya is returning to being contracted and we will keep him in our white-ball contract list. Since we were forming separate contracts for white-ball and red-ball cricket, there was much chaos and, in a bid, to exclude players from the list, we left Soumya's name out," Minhajul explained the reason to a local media.
"It's a mistake by the selectors. We are expected to include him soon in our contracts' list for white-ball [cricket],'' said Akram Khan, chairman of the BCB's cricket operations committee.
For the first time, BCB has enacted different contracts for red-ball cricket. Tamim Iqbal, Liton Das, Nazmul Hossain Shanto, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mohammad Mithun, Taijul Islam and Mehedi Hasan Miraz have been included in both white-ball and red-ball categories.
Mominul Haque, Nayeem Hasan, Abu Jayed and Ebadot Hossain have been included solely for red-ball cricket while T20I skipper Mahmudullah Riyad along with Mohammad Saifuddin, Mustafizur Rahman, Afif Hossain and Mohammad Naim form the list of players who have gotten white-ball contracts.
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