“People should be more interested in playing against us but instead we are sitting on the sidelines”

Image courtesy of: ESPNcricinfo

Bangladesh opener Tamim Iqbal wants his side to be playing cricket on a more regular basis, especially considering that they won’t be in action until England visit in October.

Bangladesh have not played any international cricket since featuring in the World Twenty20 in March and they were supposed to play their maiden Test match in India, but that was postponed until next year.

As of now, Bangladesh are currently in talks about hosting the West Indies in September, but nothing has been finalised as of yet.

With Bangladesh on track to not play any international cricket for six months, Iqbal feels as if something must be done.

“After such a great season, we are not playing for six months,” Tamim told ESPNcricinfo. “It would definitely hamper us. People should be more interested in playing against us but instead we are sitting on the sidelines. We don’t know who we are going to play after six months. There’s no team in the world apart from Zimbabwe who sit out for so long between matches.”

Bangladesh enjoyed a fantastic 2015 as they reached the quarter-final of the World Cup for the first time before going on to beat Pakistan, India, South Africa and Zimbabwe in ODI series on home soil.

With that being said, Iqbal believes that Bangladesh will begin to lose the momentum they worked so hard to build up if they don’t play more cricket. Furthermore, Iqbal also questioned why other nations are unwilling to take on his side.

“Sitting for six months is not doing justice to anything,” he said. “I could have understood if we played like we did five years ago when our result was predictable, but after performing so well they still don’t want to play us, I don’t know.

“Take any top team and tell them to sit for six months. You will see how they perform after sitting for eight months. They won’t play the way they were playing.”