I wanted to retire after the World Cup: Mashrafe
The veteran Bangladesh seamer and the then captain didn't have a good campaign at the World Cup that took place in England in May-July last year.
Mashrafe Bin Mortaza dropped a biggie as he said that he wanted to retire after the World Cup last year, during a live YouTube interview.
The veteran Bangladesh seamer and the then captain didn't have a good campaign at the World Cup that took place in England in May-July last year.
He managed to pick up just a single wicket in eight matches while failing to control the flow of runs.
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Right before the World Cup, Mashrafe was elected as a member of the parliament representing his hometown Narail which didn't go well with a large contingency of his fans.
His involvement in politics coupled with his cricketing failure at the World Cup fueled critics to question the continuation of his cricketing career.
However, speaking on Wednesday, Mashrafe revealed that he actually wanted to retire after the last game of the World Cup against Pakistan at Lord's.
"I wanted to retire in the last match of the World Cup. If anyone can deny it, even if the cricket board can deny it, then they have to do that live in front of me someday", said the Narail Express.
"...I wanted to do this (retire) in the last match...But later on, there were talks like it can't be over like this, rather it should be done in a better way."
"After coming back (to Bangladesh) there were talks of arranging a match with Zimbabwe (for my retirement) spending two crore taka. However, I realized that I do deserve to retire from the field, but I don't deserve 2 crore taka for a single match. I don't deserve this much money when our first-class cricket is in this (bad) stage. I didn't retire thinking about this reason that Bangladesh cricket board will spend two crore taka just for me."
Mashrafe also mentioned the support of Nazmul Hassan, the President of Bangladesh Cricket Board, and thanked him for his support and said that he always maintained communications.
After having retired from T20Is three years ago, and Tests a lot before that, Mashrafe was active in only ODIs where he was the skipper.
However, he resigned from his captaincy in March this year after whitewashing Zimbabwe 3-0 in Sylhet.
