Bangladesh Test captain Mominul Haque has said that he was “not well-informed” about the dramatic Test retirement of Mahmudullah Riyad which left the cricketing fraternity in Bangladesh stunned.

Bangladesh won the one-off Test against Zimbabwe on Sunday by a big margin of 220 runs. In the post-match press conference, Mominul said he is not in a position to talk about Mahmudullah’s retirement as he is not informed well.

“It was his personal call,” Mominul said. “Everyone is free to make his own decision. I can’t talk about this. We just tried to play well and win the game. We wanted to make this match memorial if it is his final Test.”

At the start of last day’s play, the Bangladesh team performed a guard of honour for Mahmudullah. “If it is really his last game, we wanted to play well and make it special. He won his first Test, and now, he was playing his 50th game in Harare. Keeping all this in mind, we performed a guard of honour for him,” Mominul explained.

Mahmudullah revealed his retirement plan after he smashed an unbeaten 150 in the first innings of the game. Before the third day’s game, he talked to the teammates and informed them that he would call his days after this Test.

Also read: Bangladesh beat Zimbabwe by 220 runs in one-off Test

After this news broke out, Mahmudullah answered the questions sent to him from Bangladesh media. But he didn’t say anything about his retirement.

Meanwhile, Nazmul Hasan, the BCB president said the decision of Mahmudullah came as an utter surprise to him as the allrounder gave written consent to the board recently saying that he is eager to play in formats for Bangladesh.

Before getting selected for the Zimbabwe Test, Mahmudullah was out of the Test setup for more than 17 months. The current head coach of the Bangladesh national team, Russell Domingo, had earlier suggested the right-handed allrounder focus on white-ball cricket more.

It is widely believed that Mahmudullah didn’t take this stance of the coach positively, and thus, he wanted to prove his mettle in Tests and say goodbye. After posting 150 in Harare, his best in the format, Mahmudullah thought the right time to keep his whites away has come.

The right-handed off-spinning allrounder had been an integral part of the Bangladesh national team in all formats of the game from 2009 to 2017. But he lost his place in the Test more than once in recent years.

Also read: BAN vs. ZIM Test Series 2021: Five Things We Learned From The One-Off Test

His lean display against in the last two years in Tests prompted BCB to consider him only for the white-ball cricket. In the last central contract, he was handed an agreement only for the white-ball games.

Mahmudullah got his Test cap back in 2009 against West Indies. In the first Test of his career at Kingston, Mahmudullah bagged eight wickets with a five-for in the second innings, which his only five-wicket haul in Tests.

Including the ongoing Test, Mahmudullah played a total of 50 Tests for the Tigers and scored 1949 runs till the first innings of the Harare Test. He has 5 Test centuries under his belt.

Mahmudullah won the player of the match award in the Harare Test and later talked to the broadcaster but did not engage in retirement talk.

In an interaction with the media after Mahmudullah received the guard of honour on day 5, the BCB president said: “It’s not expected from a player like Mahmudullah. We would sit with the senior players after this series ends. We fear that the other members of the national team could do the same things. We will take strict measures to stop this in future.”