Home ›› 13 Aug 2022 ›› Sport
The relationship between Shakib Al Hasan and the Bangladesh Cricket Board has seemingly gone sour as BCB President Nazmul Hassan threatened that the all-rounder would be axed from the national setup if he did not give up his sponsorship deal with Betwinner News.
It was an indication towards BCB not being lenient with the all-rounder anymore, contrary to previous occasions.
Nazmul’s ultimatum came at the ending stages of the saga regarding Shakib’s sponsorship deal with Betwinner News, which he revealed on August 2 and had signed without BCB’s permission.
Betwinner News is a surrogate company of Betwinner, an online betting platform. Though Shakib had not signed with the betting website directly, according to BCB’s policies, there will be no business with anyone related to betting.
Shakib did not either follow that policy or inform BCB priorly about it. And that saw BCB take the hard line with him as Nazmul said Shakib would have no affiliations with the national team if he did not terminate his deal.
“Anyone affiliated with anything related to betting will not have any affiliation with Bangladesh cricket. We will not include him in the team until we get his reply on paper or if the response is not satisfactory,” Nazmul said.
He added, “There can be no affiliations. He has to come out of that deal completely. Otherwise, he won’t be in the team; captaincy comes later. There is no room for discussions regarding this matter.”
Later, Shakib handed in a letter to BCB stating that he will terminate his contract with Betwinner News.
Previously, Shakib had been often let loose by the BCB, considering his performances on the field. In 2014, Shakib was banned for six months after leaving to play the Caribbean Premier League without permission from BCB. But later, it was reduced to three months.
Shakib, in 2019, was banned for a year by the International Cricket Council for not reporting approaches from a bookmaker. Since his return, Shakib has missed Test matches regularly, but BCB had been pretty lenient with him.
At the start of 2022, Shakib was included in the squad for Bangladesh’s two-match Test series in New Zealand. But later, he opted out of the series citing personal reasons.
Later in March, Shakib staged another storm in the cricketing fraternity as he said on March 6 that he did not feel mentally and physically prepared to play international cricket. Thus, he asked for a break from Bangladesh’s South Africa tour, despite him being included in the squad for all three formats on March 3.
BCB then hinted at taking a hard line but gave him rest until April 30 from all international and domestic cricket on March 9. And the next day, he was included in the central contract for all three formats.
Later, Shakib turned 180 degrees on his decision and went to South Africa but had to return without playing the Test series as several of his family members fell ill.
Since then, Shakib has been made Test captain and is set to become the T20I captain, starting from the Asia Cup. Speaking with a national Bangla daily, the BCB president informed that they are set to hand Shakib the baton as they have no other options.
He also stated in that interview that this was Shakib’s last chance and that he will be under continuous surveillance from now.
Nazmul also iterated during the press conference on Thursday saying that nobody was indispensable.
“Remember, nobody is indispensable. Yes, we don’t have anybody like Shakib in our country right now. We have lost a lot of matches without Shakib, but we have won a lot without him too. But there is no chance to move away from some basic things. I think it’s impossible for us,” he said on Thursday.
With all that, BCB seems to have moved away from their lenient spot for their premier all-rounder and the relationship is seemingly not as breezy as it had been.
