The last few days haven’t gone down well for the Bangladesh players and the respective board. Off all, the ban of Shakib Al Hasan is something, which is hard to gulp down. In fact, the timing of the ban is something, which left the fans with a lot of puzzled faces.
A few of the fans claimed that Bangladesh Cricket Board deliberately banned Shakib Al Hasan to move the focus of strikes while a few of them claimed that BCCI has got their hand in the matter. However, spilling the beans, the BCB director Akram Khan revealed that Shakib Al Hasan himself wanted to get the ban ahead of India tour.
Nonetheless, there is a solid reason behind the decision. With the ban of Shakib Al Hasan ending on October 29th, there is a little chance for him to represent Bangladesh in the ICC T20I World Cup 2020, as the tournament will begin October 15th.
Hope is at least there to see Shakib Al Hasan in the 2020 World Cup:
If Shakib al Hasan chose to tour India, either he will play complete series or come back to the country from the middle of the tour. It will be even more shameful and also leaves the team in trouble, as a key player leaving mid-way is always a tough thing for the team. Considering all those, Shakib chose to receive a ban as quickly as possible.
“We said it before, we knew nothing about this. Many people are wondering why it happened just before the India tour. They [ACSU] said to Shakib that the ban will be imposed after a few more days. If it didn’t happen now, then it could have happened in the middle of the India series. It would have affected the whole team and Shakib didn’t want that.”
“Shakib himself said it. Apart from that, he would have also missed the 2020 T20 World Cup if the ban would have been imposed a little bit later. That hope is still at least hanging now,” Akram added.
Shakib Al Hasan found guilty of breaching the ICC Anti-Corruption Code and was charged for not reporting approaches from an alleged Indian bookie, Deepak Aggarwal. In fact, it has happened twice. Once it was during a tri-series among Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe in January 2018.
Later, during the IPL in April 2018. As a result, the ICC handed him a two-year ban (1 of which is suspended) with effect from October 29. With BCB mulling to take a legal route to cut short Shakib’s ban period, there is a good chance to see him in the world cup.
