‘I Will Announce After…’: Shakib Al Hasan Confirms His Retirement Plans

Bangladesh allrounder and ODI captain Shakib Al Hasan has revealed he plans to play for two more years before retiring from international cricket. Shakib says he will walk away after the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy.

While his ODI and T20I retirements are still some time away, the 36-year-old may draw curtains on his Test career soon after the 2023 ODI World Cup.

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“The 2025 Champions Trophy for ODIs and the 2024 T20 World Cup for T20Is. Tests may be sooner. Maybe (after ODI WC). I will retire all at once, but I will stop playing each format one by one. I will announce my retirement after the 2025 Champions Trophy,” Shakib was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.

Shakib says he doesn’t plan to continue captaining Bangladesh once the world cup ends and in fact, didn’t want to take up the role for the ODI showpiece either.

“Given the current reality, I am captain only till the World Cup. Not a day more. I resigned from the captaincy on the 17th (September). I informed Papon bhai (Nazmul Hassan) and emailed the CEO that I don’t want to be the captain,” he said.

“The reasons were the same when I didn’t want to captain ahead of the Asia Cup. I don’t think my captaincy is adding value at this stage of my career. I wanted to just bowl my ten overs, give my best in fielding, and do my batting,” he added.

Shakib said Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hassan had discussions with him regarding the captaincy following which he agreed to take up the responsibility.

“The easiest thing to do for me would have been not to take the captaincy. When he offered me the job, I immediately told him I don’t want to do it in this situation. At this age, I didn’t want to take this pressure. I want to smile, enjoy my game, perform for Bangladesh,” he said.

“(Papon) described the situation to me. A captain has to do the job on and off the field. When I learned that the BCB, coach and team management were unanimous in their decision about me, then I took the captaincy,” he added.