Liton’s challenge in balancing captaincy and performance

Liton Das’ form has been poor for a while, not having scored a fifty in ODIs since the 2023 ICC ODI World Cup, but as a skipper he impressed with his tactics in a 3-0 T20I series sweep in West Indies last year. With Liton now officially in-charge of Bangladesh in T20Is, questions are being raised over whether he can overcome the concerns over his form and other challenges that kept him away from captaincy in the past.

“We have to understand that the Bangladesh team captain is the captain of the entire country. It’s a very difficult job,” Bangladesh team’s senior assistant coach Mohammad Salahuddin said while addressing questions on Liton’s captaincy today.

“All of us have to support him. The captain will run the team, so he needs wholehearted support. If he gets that freedom, he will do well. From the outside, it may seem that captaining a team is easy, but in reality, it isn’t,” Salahuddin added.

Liton carries a quiet demeanour but at times has reacted hot-headedly in the media in the past. The captain’s job is building morale and consolidating any issues within the side, both of these tasks require level-headedness.

“From what I had seen of Liton before to what I saw in the last series as captain — to me, it felt like night and day. If you listen to him talk now, you’ll notice that a lot has changed,” Salahuddin said regarding how much captaincy has opened Liton to taking more responsibility.

But Salahuddin also had warnings in regards to captaincy, especially when a player is not performing with the bat as he should. Former T20I skipper Najmul Hossain Shanto had spoken about not being able to run things as he wanted to and for Liton to succeed, Salahuddin felt that aspect needs to be ensured.

“Strength-wise, he is a good tactician, he knows about field placements and strength of the bowlers and he analyses the game well. If we talk about his weakness, since he has not scored many runs for a while, it is his weakness for the time being. But I feel he will come out of it,” Salahuddin said on Liton’s strength and weakness.

“If you don’t let a captain plan the way he wants, then why make him captain in the first place? Once you choose someone as captain, you have to give him full freedom — because he’s the one running the team,” Salahuddin said.

Salahuddin also said that in order to succeed as a captain, Liton has to learn how to handle cricicism.

“I’m trying to teach one thing — this responsibility brings fame, as well as criticism with it. He has to learn how to handle it.”