The Bangladesh Cricket Board on Monday appointed Najmul Hossain Shanto as their new all format skipper for next one year while they also appointed country’s first ODI skipper Gazi Ashraf Hossain Lipu as the new chief selector.

BCB President Nazmul Hasan Papon made the announcements after the board of directors meeting held at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium.

The BCB boss said that they decided to go with Shanto, who led them in all three formats after the World Cup last year in the absence of Shakib Al Hasan, as they had doubts on Shakib al Hasan’s availability due to his eye problem.

“I have talked to Shakib. His eye problem is still causing problem. There is some uncertainty regarding his participation in Sri Lanka. The World Cup is very near. So we didn’t take any chances,” Nazmul told reporters in Mirpur.

“We are not sure about Shakib’s availability and that is why we picked Shanto (Najmul) for all three formats,” he added.

Earlier, Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathurusingha expressed his interest to give long-term captaincy to Shanto after he was highly impressed with his captaincy in the recent past.

Meanwhile, BCB also brought change in the national selection panel by appointing Ashraf, who previously worked in different capacities in the board, as the chief selector for next two years.

With this appointment, Minhajul Abedin and Habibul Bashar’s long term as selectors came to an end.

Minhajul has been in the selection panel since 2011 but was appointed as the chief selector in 2016 while Habibul, who was previously with the women's selection team, took the post of national men’s selector in 2016.

The other selector Abdur Razzak, however, was retained from the previous selection panel while Hannan Sarker was also named in the selection panel.

Meanwhile, Nazmul said that Minhajul and Habibul will work in the board in different capacities.

“Of course, the board appreciated their contribution to the team. We decided to keep them with the board in different capacities,” the BCB boss said.

On the other hand, the BCB also approved the national contract and the first-class contract during the meeting. A total of 21 players were named in the national contract while 85 players were named in the first-class contract.

Tamim Iqbal, Ebadot Hossain, Afif Hossain and Mosaddek Hossain, who were part of national contract last year, were ignored this year while Tawhid Hridoy, Mahmudul Hasan Joy, Nayeem Hasan and Tanzim Hasan Sakib were included in the contract list.

Taskin Ahmed, who recently informed the board regarding his reluctance to play longer-version cricket in order to manage his workload, wasn’t included in the Test contract while Mahmudullah was only given a contract in ODIs just like the past year.

Meanwhile, Nazmul confirmed that they received the recommendation of the special committee formed by the board to assess the disappointing performance in the World Cup during the board meeting while they will also sit with Tamim in the coming days regarding his international career.