Former chief selector applauds Razzak’s appointment

Former chief selector Faruk Ahmed welcomed the decision to include veteran left arm spinner Abdur Razzak in the selection panel.  Razzak was included as the third member of the national selection committee led by MInhajul Abedin following a board meeting yesterday. 

"First of all, I would like to congratulate Abdur Razzak for becoming a member of the selection committee and I think it's a very timely decision. We have been running the selection with only two person even as there are few board directors who are involved in the selection committee as well.  

"As he has just left cricket recently and he has the idea about modern day cricket, it will be easy for him to scout players. I feel it's very important to be a good human being as selector which means you are morally clean as a person. Many times we see that if there was a grudge during their playing days, they might victimize others later but I haven't seen anything of the kind from Razzak [during his playing days]. He played under me long back and he we all know how good a player he was. I think he will be able to do his job as a selector very well," said Faruk. 

The 54-year-old Faruk had resigned from the chief selector's post back in 2016 after the Bangladesh Cricket Board introduced the new selection committee. The committee includes three national selectors, the head coach and the manager of the national team and the chairman of the BCB's cricket operations committee.

With the head coach and the manager getting an official say in the selection process, Faruk eventually resigned from the post. Since then Minhajul led the two-member selection committee before Razzak was eventually included as the third member yesterday. 

Faruk picked the likes of Shakib AL Hasan, Tamim Iqbal and Mushfiqur Rahim at a very early age for the 2007 ICC World Cup and the former Bangladesh captain had suggestions for the current committee.  

"Selection is a complex thing and it's not easy to describe how it should be done. But I have two suggestions as Bangladesh has reached a level where we can name 25-30 players at once, even the general people can do it. But what's next after that?  

"And the second thing is that the selectors need to pick specific players for the specific roles and not just picking up four-five openers in the team and play them at different positions. We need to be specific on our selection," he added.