Khaled Mahmud has been named as Bangladesh’s 2023 World Cup squad director.

The national selection committee has named Khaled Mahmud, the current director of the Bangladesh Cricket Board and the former captain of the men’s side for Bangladesh, as the “team director” for the ICC Men’s World Cup in 2023.

Mahmud has already stated that he is not yet prepared to take over as team director, a position he relinquished after the home series against India. Mahmud, however, acknowledged to Cricbuzz on Tuesday that he had to accept BCB president Nazmul Hasan’s offer for the position and that he was unable to refuse it.

Khaled Mahmud stated, “Papon (Nazmul) bhai called me this morning and told me that he is including my name in the team management list for the World Cup and I could not say no to him.”

Mahmud previously worked with Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathurusingha to oversee the squad during his first tenure as national head coach, and the two get along well.

Although Khaled Mahmud was adamant that he was involved in the selection meeting when he was hired as team director the last time following their disaster in the ICC World T20 in 2021, he admitted that he is not entirely certain whether he will be part in the selection process or not.

Khaled Mahmud, who had previously worked as a technical director, made the decision to leave the role since he had little input into the planning and player selection made by the team management, which included head coach Russell Domingo.

Later, once the BCB made the decision to implement split coaching, he was a member of the team management that Sridharan Sriram led in the shortest format. Sriram was in charge of the T20Is, while Domingo oversaw the Test and ODI cricketers.