After an enormous criticism Mominul was bound to put off his captain’s armband and finally was dropped from the second Test of the ongoing two-match Test series against West Indies for the bigger interest of the team.
After his bad patch for a long time (nine innings) critics targeting him such a way that Mominul was only the player for whom Bangladesh team cut a sorry figure since January 9-11, 2022 to June 16-19 Antigua Test.
Almost from all quarters mostly Mominul was blamed for all the failures, like, all out for 126 runs in Hagley Oval, New Zealand, 53 and 80 runs in South Africa, 169 runs against Sri Lanka at home venue, Shere-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium, 103 and 265 runs at Antigua and not necessary mentioning that Tigers suffered defeat in all the series apart from New Zealand (1-1).
Interestingly, despite these are all combined failures of Tigers’ batters but Mominul was pondered as the main culprit for all the disappointments and counted his breakdown is only the reason for full team’s dead duck.
As a result, not only captaincy, finally he was thrown out from the squad.
But question is that, was it too essential or a justice sending off him from the team before the last Test, how much the team was benefited when at St. Lucia in the first innings Tigers were about to be bundled out before 200 when it was seven down for 165 runs.
The tail-ender Shouriful and Ebadot’s 36-run partnership with Shoriful played a T20 mood to score 27 from 17 balls just saved from another debacle. Besides this partnership, Tamim and Joy scored 41 runs, the highest partnership followed by Anamul Haque and Nazmul Hossain Shanto, the third wicket pair socred the second highest 37 runs.
So, in absence of Mominul, none of the batters could shine with their bats when Liton Das and Tamim were notable scorers with 46 and 53 runs respectively, and other granted batters could not score 30 runs or even a 30 runs partnership.
There is no scope to bring any question about the pitch that it was a bowling friendly when we have a look to West Indian batters, after bowling out Bangladesh for 234, the openers Kraigg Brathwaite and John Campbell scored unbeaten 67 runs in 16 overs (average 4.18) and Bangladesh batters scored 234 in 64.2 overs at an average of 3.63.
So, the question comes up that it was not at any big erroneous or any offense if Mominul was given the last chance to play the second Test. It was obviously very much odd looking that a player, who just quit his captaincy to get rid of his bat patch, was dropped after playing one match.
He certainly deserved to have the chance to play in the second Test, if he could not regain his usual form then there would be no question about ignoring him.
Now, we have to look forward what will happen in the second innings, how the batters would appear, as Mominul was dropped for the betterment of the team.