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Shakib Al Hasan follows a pattern – make a mistake, apologise and then compensate for the off-field wrong doing with performance on it. Rinse and repeat.
August 13 is expected to be a busy day in Bangladesh cricket with board president Nazmul Hasan slated to sit down for a chat with the veteran all-rounder, who himself will arrive from the USA a few hours before the meeting. The agenda of the meeting is to clear several issues regarding Shakib’s controversial deal with Betwinner News which he eventually backed out of on Thursday following a BCB ultimatum.
If it were to play to previous scripts, Shakib will say ‘sorry’ to the BCB boss when they sit across the table and just like those other times, all will be well once more. After all, he is one of the best cricketers of his generation and certainly the best the country has produced. But the most celebrated cricketer of the country is also its biggest dilemma.
It was not the first time that Shakib had breached the law. In 2019 he fell foul of the regulations after inking a deal with a Telecom company that prompted BCB to announce that it would take legal action against the all-rounder.
At that point BCB officials said that Shakib did not inform them about the deal and as he was banned by the ICC for failing to report corrupt approaches by the bookies in the following week, that whole episode was buried under the bigger transgression.
While Shakib certainly needs to be blamed for constantly crossing the line, can BCB be excused for not having the ear to hear the alarm bells? Top officials of the board said after the latest Betwinner episode that they will take action against Shakib if he fails to comply with the guidelines provided by the board in the future given he has already breached contract by not informing the board about his sponsorship deal.
BCB did not pay any heed to make sure that they ask the player about his sponsorship deals though it is clearly stated in the player’s agreement that cricketers need to fill and submit the Players Endorsement Procedure (PEP) form before participating in any advertisement campaign.
In fact, board president Nazmul’s insistence that they were not aware of the deal with Betwinner only raises the question whether board was keen enough to keep an eye on its problematic child.
Many inside the cricket fraternity firmly believe that the board is paying the price for its inability to handle Shakib and despite his troubled ways, the board’s decision to appoint him as Test skipper perhaps proves that they are always playing second fiddle to him in a debate.
A BCB official insisted on Friday (August 12) that the board will also remind him about what he can do and what he can’t as a national icon considering he is hogging the spotlight for all the wrong reasons since returning to competitive cricket following his ICC ban.
BCB felt that Shakib would change after the ICC sanction but that hasn’t turned out to be the case considering that after coming back to cricket, he again triggered controversy by kicking down the stumps during a Dhaka Premier League match between Mohammedan Sporting and Abahani Limited in 2021. Shakib received a ban and fine for his angry outburst. Following that DPL incident, Shakib and BCB again came face to face after he decided that he was not ready to play international cricket just ahead of the South Africa tour.
BCB had to coax and convince him to change his mind and though he said then that he would be available for the forthcoming international fixtures across formats, he didn’t take time to change his mind as he opted out of the West Indies ODIs and then skipped the entire tour of Zimbabwe where the team lost both the T20I and ODI series.
BCB certainly went for a stop gap solution during the tour of South Africa but whether it really bore any fruit is not yet visible considering the all-rounder’s availability in the next international assignment cannot be guaranteed.
The Betwinner issue appeared to be the final straw with BCB adamant that it would sever all ties with the all-rounder if he didn’t opt out from the deal. Shakib eventually opted out of it but the board is not yet convinced and the meeting is set primarily to understand what prompted him to make such a deal.
“Let him come and sit with us and across the table, I am hopeful that lot of things will be cleared but he must remember that this is his last chance,” BCB president Nazmul Hasan told media after receiving the letter from Shakib where he stated that he will not have any relation with Betwinner News on Thursday.
Only time will tell whether it is Shakib’s last chance but he will have the benefit of the BCB needing to discuss other matters with him. The veteran cricketer will also be spoken to about the T20 captaincy with BCB running out of time to announce the squad for the upcoming Asia Cup.
Shakib is the front-runner to lead the T20I squad and if that is the case it only suggests that the board may once more not have the bargaining power in the conversation with two major multi-nation tournaments to come.
Nazmul has insisted that he and the board is going to keep Shakib under close watch from now onwards and probably that is the only way to deal with their major star. It is better late than never or else the ‘pattern’ is always there for Shakib to follow.
