Mushfiqur Rahim 'won't change' his mind about Pakistan tour

Mushfiqur Rahim has stressed that he would not change his mind about skipping the tour of Pakistan, despite BCB president Nazmul Hassan's tough stance on the matter, where he said that Mushfiqur was "contract-bound" to tour with the rest of the team.

"I made my stance clear about Pakistan, and they [BCB] has also accepted it," Mushfiqur told NTV news channel. "They should have shown me respect for not putting my name in the PSL draft either. I think it is pretty clear. It won't change in the future. I wish well to those who are going to Pakistan."

Bangladesh's tour of Pakistan was split in three, and the last of these is lined up for early April, when the two teams play a one-off ODI [April 3] and the second of two Tests [from April 5], all in Karachi. The two teams first played a three-T20I series in Lahore in January and then the first Test in Rawalpindi earlier this month. Mushfiqur, who scored his third double-hundred in Tests in Bangladesh's innings-and-106-run win over Zimbabwe in Dhaka earlier this week, had opted out of touring earlier, saying that his family was concerned for his safety.

He was the only Bangladeshi cricketer to refuse to travel.

Hassan, who had stated before announcing the tour dates in January that every player had the right to choose whether he wanted to tour Pakistan or not, made a U-turn after Bangladesh's win over Zimbabwe, expressing his dismay at Mushfiqur's decision.

"We are expecting that he would go. Not only him, but every contracted player should go," he had said. "Players have to think about the country, and not just themselves. This is what I personally feel. The country comes before everything else.

"Everyone should keep it in mind. We will remind them that the contracted players must play as they are told, when selected. It never occurred to me that one has to tell them this, too."