Akbar Ali built his reputation as a captain by leading Bangladesh to their first-ever U-19 World Cup title back in 2020.

Many domestic teams wanted him to lead their sides following his rise as a leader in age-level cricket. He also captained the Bangladesh High Performance (HP) Unit and the Bangladesh ‘A’ team.

Akbar also guided Rangpur Division as champion in the recently-concluded National Cricket League (NCL) T20 tournament.

Two years earlier, Akbar won NCL's four-day competition for Rangpur Division while he also led the Gazi Group Cricketers at the Dhaka Premier League with moderate success, making into the super six during the last edition of the league with a relatively inexperienced side.

However, the right-handed wicket-keeper batter is yet to make his debut as captain in Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), country's biggest T20 competition.

Durbar Rajshahi picked Akbar for this year's BPL but the talismanic leader insisted that he was unsure whether he will lead the side or not if an offer is made by the franchise.

“I have to think about that (captaincy). If such a proposal comes my way, then I will think. It depends on how the team management wants things to happen,” Akbar told the reporters after their opening day’s practice session at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on Friday.

“When you play for a team, you have to be the most optimistic about that team. I think the players we have, and if we can play according to our potential, we can beat any team. T20 is such a format that you can't win matches by being strong on pen and paper,” he added.

Leaving aside captaincy, Akbar’s batting order is another issue as many feel that he has been batting too far down the order for most of his domestic T20 career.

In the last five years, he batted 44 times in domestic T20 matches but batted below number five on 25 occasions. Things have changed in the last NCL T20 as he took the responsibility to bat at numbers four and five and guided the innings from the middle overs till the end, making 208 runs in nine games with a 149.64 strike rate.

“I personally prefer to bat at number four or five but ultimately, I have to play as a team. But if you ask me, I will prefer the number 5 position,” he said, adding that he is working in power-hitting.

“I focused on white-ball cricket during the HP tour. Definitely, you have to work on your power hitting when you play white-ball cricket. Also worked on my bat swing," he concluded.