Tamim Iqbal announced his retirement from T20Is shortly after leading the ODI side to a 3-0 series win over the West Indies in Guyana. Bangladesh won the match by four wickets, with Tamim taking the player-of-the-series award. At around 6pm local time, he wrote a short message on his official Bangla Facebook page saying: “Consider me retired from T20 internationals from today. Thank you everyone.”
It puts an end to speculation in recent weeks about his decision to continue playing the format from which he took a break in January this year. He said at the time that he will be taking a six-month break from T20Is.
“My full focus will be on tests and ODIs,” Tamim said on January 27 this year. “We are preparing for the World Test Championship and qualifying for the 2023 World Cup. I will not think about T20Is for the next six months. I hope those who play will do so well, that the team will not need me in T20Is But if God forbid the team or the cricket board needs me, and I’m ready, I may think about it.”
Tamim had shied away from this format since the middle of last year when he made the surprising decision to voluntarily withdraw from the fight for the T20 World Cup in the UAE. Tamim stepped away to give Soumya Sarkar and Mohammad Naim an extended run as openers, though both failed and were later dropped on the T20I side.
Tamim last played a T20I in March 2020 when he made 41 from 33 balls against Zimbabwe. He was criticized in some quarters in the T20I series before that, in Pakistan, when he made 65 from 53 balls.
Instead, Tamim thrived in the other formats, leading Bangladesh to five consecutive wins in the ODI series including the one against the West Indies that ended Saturday.
Tamim was a regular in Bangladesh’s T20I side from 2007 to 2018, having played 75 out of 84 possible appearances for the side. He remains the lone batter with a century for Bangladesh, finishing as the third highest point scorer with 1701 running at 24.65 on average. Tamim will likely play in domestic T20 leagues. He is the all time leading run-scorer in the BPLhave played in every season of the tournament.