Shakib Al Hasan is among five Bangladesh men's cricketers to be handed central contracts by the BCB for all three formats this year. The decision was taken despite Shakib's unavailability for four Tests so far this year.
Shakib skipped the New Zealand Tests in January due to personal reasons, and created quite a stir when he said his physical and mental condition wasn't allowing him to tour South Africa later this month. The BCB subsequently granted him rest from all international cricket matches till April 30.
On Wednesday, the BCB's cricket operations chairman Jalal Yunus said that Shakib has stepped back from his initial request to keep him away from Tests till mid-November. But the announcement on Thursday suggests the BCB is expecting Shakib to be available for the rest of the Tests this year.
Besides Shakib, the BCB continued with Mushfiqur Rahim, Litton Das, Taskin Ahmed and Shoriful Islam for the all-formats contracts, just as they did in 2021.
Mahmudul Hasan Joy and Yasir Ali are the two new entrants with Test contracts, while the BCB offloaded Mohammad Saifuddin, Soumya Sarkar, Saif Hassan, Abu Jayed and Shamim Hossain.
Similar to last year's contracts, Tamim Iqbal, who announced that he is taking a six-month break from T20Is this year, and Mehidy Hasan Miraz, have been handed Tests and ODI contracts. Mahmudullah, who retired from Tests last year, and Mustafizur Rahman have ODIs and T20Is in their contracts. Taijul Islam got a slight demotion after he was given a Test-only contract, a change from his Tests and ODIs contract last year.
The BCB however didn't announce the monthly salary or the match fees for each format.
Mohammad Isam is ESPNcricinfo's Bangladesh correspondent. @isam84
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