Mahedi Hasan rues lack of consistent opportunities in Bangladesh's T20 setup

Bangladesh T20I all-rounder Mahedi Hasan has expressed his frustration at not receiving a consistent run in the side, suggesting that frequent omissions have hampered his ability to perform at his best.

A T20 specialist, Mahedi was left out of the second and third matches of the recently concluded T20I series against Australia despite contributing in the opener, where he scored an unbeaten 29 from No. 8 and returned figures of 1 for 29.

It is understood that the team management opted for left-arm spinner Nasum Ahmed, who fulfils a similar role in white-ball cricket, after Mahedi failed to make inroads during the Powerplay in the first game.

"Regret is often there, as a cricketer I only play the T20 format but even then I am not a regular there, more often than not I fall under the requirements of matchup or combination, it is disappointing for me," Mahedi told T-Sports after the series.

"If I could play regularly I could have performed better than what I did previously," he added.

Mahedi admitted that being a one-format cricketer makes it even harder to retain his place in the side.

"Definitely, it is really challenging: those who play two or three formats, they are constantly in touch with international cricket. Since I only play T20s, sometimes I have to wait one or two months between games, even in a series of two or three matches I don't get to play all of them. Somehow I am excluded due to team combination," he said.

Drawing a comparison with Bangladesh's Test specialists, Mahedi pointed out that while they too endure long gaps between matches, they are guaranteed opportunities once selected.

"If you look at Showrab (Mominul Haque) bhai, Mushfiqur (Rahim) bhai and Taijul (Islam) bhai, who only play Test cricket, they also play after gaps, but in any Test match they get to play two innings, batting or bowling, but T20 is different and played in high intensity, it is a difficult game, one has to manage a lot of things in a short space of time, keeping those in mind it would have been better for me had I played regularly," he said.

The all-rounder also questioned what he perceived as a disparity between the treatment of batters and bowlers in Bangladesh's T20 setup.

"I have always faced difficulties, ever since my childhood, and now in international cricket as well, you know, maybe everyone knows, I don't play on a regular basis, you have noticed, a batter of this country gets a lot of opportunities but it is not the same case for a bowler, the top two T20 batters of our country will never be dropped, this should also apply for the top two T20 bowlers...

"You can take me as an example, if you see, my economy is good in T20s, it is among the lowest in Bangladesh, but yet I'm not a regular, the same thing is not happening for bowlers as it is for batters, why is this happening?," he concluded.