Bangladesh: Former Bangladesh U-19 player Mohammad Sozib committed suicide at his residence in Durgapur on Saturday (November 14) at the age of 21, local police confirmed. Sozib was a part of the Tigers’ U-19 World Cup squad and had gone to New Zealand in 2018 as a standby player but wasn’t included in the playing XI. The young right-handed batsman was in Bangladesh U-19’s Asia Cup squad earlier.
An opener, Sozib last played competitive cricket in the 2017-18 Dhaka Premier League for Shinepukur Cricket Club. He also played three Youth ODIs for Bangladesh against Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, in 2017.
Khaled Mahmud, the BCB director who is also the head coach of Bangla Trac Academy in Rajshahi where Sozib started training in 2008, remembered him as a talented cricketer. “I can’t believe what I heard,” Mahmud was quoted as saying by Bengali daily Kaler Kantho. “I am feeling extremely sad hearing the news. He was an opening batsman who bowled medium-pace, and he played for Shinepukur Cricket Club.”
Abu Enam Mohammad, the Bangladesh Cricket Board’s (BCB) game development manager, was deeply saddened by the incident. “Sozib was part of our U-19’s 2018 batch with Saif and Afif (Hossain). He was a standby in the World Cup. He played against Sri Lanka as well as in the Asia Cup. It’s really sad to hear this,” Abu said.
Tanumoy Ghosh, a first-class cricketer from Rajshahi said: “I always believed that he could play for a long time because he was so hard working in the academy. It is sad to hear what happened to him.”
