After a scan at East London yesterday showed that there was no improvement in his left thigh muscle tear, the Bangladesh team management finally decided to send opener Tamim Iqbal back home today. He will now be out for four weeks and apart from missing the remaining ODI and the two T20Is on tour, the left-hander will also miss a minimum of three matches in the upcoming BPL for Comilla Victorians.
The injury was sustained on the tour's very first day of competition on September 21 during the three-day tour match at Benoni. It has been a month now that Tamim has been pushing and being pushed to get on the park to prop up a team that was looking more and more haggard with every passing match. The left-hander was uncertain for the first Test and in the lead-up did not face anything but throwdowns until the last evening before the match, when he faced his teammates' bowling at the centre wicket. He played anyway at Potchefstroom from August 28 and duly aggravated the injury during fielding.
That led to him missing the second Test in Bloemfontein from October 6 after a specialist had prescribed four weeks' rest on October 3 and gave him an outside chance of being fit for the first ODI. Given that the rest period prescribed has remained the same 17 days later, at the very least the decision to play Tamim in the second ODI after he missed the first one upon physio Thihan Chandramohan's advice, has contributed to the problem.
In Bloemfontein before the second Test, the impression was that the injury was a serious one. However, in Dhaka, before the ODI series started the noise from Bangladesh Cricket Board high-ups was that the injury was not so serious and that he would be okay to play the one-dayers. He did feature in the second match, but it seems clear now that he was definitely not okay.
The despair and short-sightedness of the management was encapsulated perfectly when even yesterday before the scan, tour manager Minhajul Abedin was using the word doubtful and hinting that they will wait till today to take a call, because back-up opener Soumya Sarkar was not in form.
In fact, it was learnt that the pain had increased following the second ODI. On the day before the second match, Tamim's words should have been a warning to himself as well as the management, and while a player will always want to play, it falls upon the management to manage their players' fitness with a view to the longer term and not just focus on avoiding another chapter in an already embarrassing tour.
“This is not my last match, nor is it Bangladesh's last tour. If I get injured again [in the same place], then I will be out for two months which I hope the team management doesn't want and neither do I. If I can pass the fitness test, I will play tomorrow but if I can't, then I have to give the injury time to heal.”
While he did pass the fitness test, it is doubtful how helpful that was for Bangladesh. With the series lost, the right decision not to risk a player seems to have been taken at least two weeks too late.
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