Bangladesh’s pacer Shoriful Islam made an interesting revelation about his countryman Mustafizur Rahman saying he enjoys playing in the Indian Premier League (IPL) more than for his country.
Mustafizur, 28, is representing Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in IPL 2024 and has taken 11 wickets so far, which makes him one of the leading wicket-takers of the tournament.
Islam stated that he watches every match Mustafizur plays in. He also made a bold assumption that the left-armer enjoys playing in IPL more because of less pressure.
"I watch every game and every ball Mustafizur bowls. I talk to him the day after the matches," Shoriful was quoted as saying by Cricbuzz.
"I think he [Mustafizur] enjoys playing in the IPL more than playing for the Bangladesh team. It is because the pressure is less there. Perhaps, there are a lot of expectations when playing for Bangladesh and you come under immense pressure if you don't play well," he said.
Islam also said that playing for the national team invites pressure as you are being watched by an entire nation, which is not the case in franchise cricket.
"He (Mustafizur) is performing regularly. It is just that he has been unable to perform in the last two or three games (for the national team). What I mean by pressure is that everyone's expectations are quite high because of his performance over the last couple of years. Perhaps he couldn't meet the expectations in the last one or two games," he concluded.
Earlier, Bangladesh Cricket Board's cricket operations chairperson, Jalal Yunus stated that Bangladesh will not benefit from Mustafizur’s participation in the IPL as he has “nothing to learn”.
"Mustafizur has nothing to learn from playing in the IPL. Mustafizur's learning process is over. Rather, there are many players in IPL who can learn from him. Bangladesh will not benefit from this," Yunus said, as quoted by Daily Star.
