Retirement from international cricket has not dulled Tamim Iqbal's competitive edge one bit as the Fortune Barishal captain got into an angry exchange with Dhaka Capitals' Sabbir Rahman during their Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) match in Chattogram yesterday.

While fielding against Tamim in the ninth over, Sabbir intentionally dropped the ball after collecting it at long-off, trying to tempt him to go for a double instead of a single.

In front of his home crowd, Tamim was not taking any prisoners and told Sabbir, "Don't try to mess with me Sabbir, don't. I'll straighten you out."

In the end, Dhaka captain Thisara Perera stepped in to keep Sabbir away and the situation did not escalate.

This was not the first time Tamim had an altercation in the current edition of the BPL, as earlier he had a heated exchange with Rangpur Riders' English batter Alex Hales after a match.

Tamim's trait of taking things head on could help him keep the fire in his belly burning to compete in domestic and franchise cricket moving forward.

Like the range of strokes he still has in his armory, he also wanted to be a smooth executioner at the press conference. On the question of continuing on with franchise cricket, he even added a quip.

"I will try to continue… I am retired now so I also qualify for the legends league. I will play those and if the Premier League takes place in time, will play that too. If fit, will try to go on playing as long as possible." Tamim said at the press conference yesterday.

Another big question was whether Tamim intended to be part of cricket administration. The question had been pitched to him before but was more addressable now since his retirement and after he recently got appointed as the president of the Chattogram Division of the Cricketers Welfare Association of Bangladesh (CWAB).

But Tamim felt the time was not right and did not divulge anything on the topic, saying, "No, not at this moment."

Tamim did not disappoint the thousands who turned up at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium with a 48-ball 61 as Barishal returned to winning ways, chasing the 140-run target with four overs and eight wickets to spare.

Still, Tamim felt the victory could've come a few overs earlier, "I feel like we should have played a bit more quickly in the middle overs. We could finished in 14 overs, since we had wickets, I feel like we missed this trick. Other than that the batting was ok," he said.