Bangladesh cricket board to sue Shakib
DHAKA: Bangladesh cricket authorities said yesterday they would take legal action against star all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan for allegedly breaching his contract to sign a sponsorship deal with a top mobile phone operator. Shakib on Tuesday inked the agreement with former national team sponsor Grameenphone for an undisclosed sum at a time when he was also leading a players’ strike for better pay and benefits.
“We believe there was a contractual and procedural breach in his contract. Of course, we will take action against it,” Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) chief executive officer Nizamuddin Chowdhury told AFP. BCB president Nazmul Hassan said they will seek compensation from both Shakib and the phone company.
“We are going to take legal action. There is no scope to spare anyone. We will seek compensation from both the company and the player,” Hassan said in an interview with Bengali newspaper Kalerkantho yesterday.
“We thought it’s a kind of ‘I don’t give a damn to the rules of Board’ attitude. If that is the case, of course, we will take tough action,” he said. Grameenphone — which is majority owned by Norway’s Telenor — was the sponsor of Bangladesh Cricket Board during the period of 2009-2011.
Hassan said the Board incurred huge losses after the company signed players individually instead of bidding to become the team sponsor in 2015 when a rival operator won the deal. “This is why we barred the players to sign any agreement with telcos... yet, he (Shakib) did this. And you see the timing? Agreement after stopping play. These are audacious behaviour,” he said.
The BCB president also criticized Shakib for his on-field performance. “We defeated England and Australia in our own ground. Now we lost to Afghanistan. If I was responsible I would not show my face let alone stage a protest,” he added, referring to Bangladesh’s 224-run loss in one-off Test against Afghanistan in early September when Shakib was captain.
Shakib led a players’ strike on Monday which follows increasing criticism from players that the Bangladesh Cricket Board was not sharing its wealth. The players called off the strike late on Wednesday and started training on
Friday for next month’s India tour as the BCB accepted most of their demands.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh opening batsman Tamim Iqbal has pulled out of next month’s Twenty20 and Test tour of India on personal grounds, the Bangladesh Cricket Board said yesterday. The 30-year-old Tamim — Bangladesh’s top run scorer in all formats — had indicated he would likely miss part of the tour to be with his wife as they expect their second child, chief selector Minhajul Abedin said. Bangladesh are scheduled to play three Twenty20 internationals and two Tests in India in November, starting in Delhi on November 3. Tamim missed Bangladesh’s recent tri-series Twenty20 tournament after a dip in form.
The left-hander also struggled in the World Cup in England, where he scored only 235 in eight innings, a 29.37 average. The 30-year later made interim captain for a three-match one-day international series in Sri Lanka in the absence of injured regular skipper Mashrafe Mortaza.
But the leadership role failed to bring out his best, with Tamim making only 21 runs in the entire series, which Bangladesh lost 0-3. The Bangladesh Cricket Board said it will name a replacement of Tamim for the India tour in due course. —AFP