The inevitable day has finally arrived as the most successful captain in Bangladesh’s ODI history, Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, will lead the team for one last time as captain. On Thursday, the captain, who has inspired millions, said that the third and final ODI of the series against Zimbabwe, scheduled to be played on Friday, will be his last as captain for team Bangladesh.
In Mashrafe, Bangladesh will not only lose a charismatic leader on the pitch, but will also lose his experience of making pivotal decisions during crunch moments of the ODI matches. His roaring leadership often boosted his troops and guided his ODI teams towards glorious victories. Not only Bangladesh, but world cricket will also miss such a true leader like Mashrafe and whoever fills his shoes as the skipper, will not be able to fill the void of Mashrafe’s heroic leadership.
Mashrafe’s ODI captaincy stint speaks for himself, as under his leadership Bangladesh won a staggering 49 matches out of 87. If Tigers can prevail in today’s match then Mashrafe will reach the 50-match winning landmark as a skipper. However, Mashrafe also told the media that if given chance, he will continue to play for Bangladesh ODI team in future.
“The last match of the series is my last ODI as Bangladesh’s captain. I will not be Bangladesh’s captain any longer. However, I will continue playing for Bangladesh,” Mashrafe told the media. Mashrafe first got the captaincy back in July 2009 and led Bangladesh for 18 matches till October 2010. During 2014, he again took over the captaincy for the second time. That was the start of golden era for Bangladesh in ODI’s. Under his belt, Bangladesh reached the quarter finals of the World Cup 2015, won series at home soil against India, Pakistan and South Africa. For the first time, Bangladesh also reached the semi-finals of the ICC Champions Trophy 2017.
He is the only Bangladeshi captain who led Bangladesh in two 50-over World Cup. Along with ODI captaincy, Mashrafe led the Tigers in one Test and 28 T20Is as well. In total, he led Bangladesh in 116 international games and won 60 of them.
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