"There is no one more serious than him"- BCB President on new Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan

Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hassan Papon is delighted to have convinced Shakib Al Hasan to take over Bangaldesh's ODI captaincy for the upcoming Asia Cup and the ODI World Cup.

Veteran opener Tamim Iqbal stepped down from the ODI captaincy and has been ruled out of the Asia Cup with a back injury. In these tough times for Bangladesh, Shakib has accepted the responsibility of becoming the captain and the BCB President heaped praise on him.

Papon spoke about how focused he feels Shakib Al Hasan has become about the game and taking Bangladesh cricket forward. Here's what he was quoted as saying by The Daily Star:

"There's no doubt about his potential. One thing I feel very good about, in recent times... watching over the last one year... is that I had doubts about Shakib, it's my personal opinion, how serious he is, what game he will play. Nor will he play ... Now I see there is no one more serious than him, about cricket."

The BCB President is also happy that Shakib has got game time under his belt having played in the Zim Afro T10 as well as in the ongoing Lanka Premier League. He added:

"The amount of games we have, he is playing continuously all of those. He went to Canada, now back to Sri Lanka. Now that he has got the captaincy in the World Cup, I think he is now totally focused on cricket. It's a big deal for us. There is never any doubt about his ability."

---

BCB President on whether Shakib Al Hasan will captain all formats

Papon claimed that he still hasn't spoken with Shakib Al Hasan about whether he wants to lead Bangladesh in just one format or multiple formats. He understands that the workload could be too much if he captains all three formats for Bangladesh.

On this, the BCB President stated:

"If he says he wants to captain in one format, then it's one thing. He might say he wants to captain in two formats, maybe in white ball or red ball. Then it's another thing. He might even say he's comfortable in captaining in three formats. So we want to discuss with him first and then take a decision through the board. But I think he might be under much pressure if he wants to captain in three formats given the amount of matches we have coming up."

Shakib Al Hasan has a huge role to play in inspiring Bangladesh to get out of a tough Asia Cup group containing Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.