Shakib Al Hasan’s international ban will end on Thursday (October 29) and Bangladesh is in a carnival atmosphere. The greatest allrounder in cricket and arguably one of the legends of Bangladesh cricket, Shakib Al Hasan has records which are an envy for any allrounder in this era of cricket. Shakib Al Hasan is the only player to score close to 4000 Test runs and take more than 200 wickets. In ODIs, he has scored over 6000 runs and has more than 250 wickets. In the ICC Cricket World Cup, he hit a fifty and took five wickets against Afghanistan while in Tests, he is the only Bangladesh player and fourth bowler overall to take a five-wicket haul against all nations.
However, in October 2019, the ICC sent shockwaves in the cricketing world when it banned Shakib Al Hasan for one year, with one more year suspended in the event of a repeat offence. What was the incident that triggered the ban from the ICC? Here is a short history of the sequence of events that led to the banning of the game’s greatest allrounder for a period of one year.
It was the year 2018. Bangladesh were playing the ODI tri-series that also involved Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. Bangladesh reached the final where they lost by 79 runs to Sri Lanka. However, prior to the tournament, more precisely in November 2017, he had received Whatsapp messages from an Indian bookie by the name of Deepak Aggarwal during the Bangladesh Premier League. In his stint with Dhaka Dynamites, Shakib Al Hasan had met the bookie.
During the 2018 tri-series, Aggarwal sent a Whatsapp message to Shakib stating that “Do we work in this or wait until the IPL?” According to an ESPNCricinfo report, the work was interpreted by the ICC as the bookie wanting inside information from Shakib Al Hasan.
The smoking gun was during the IPL 2018 contest between Kings XI Punjab and Sunrisers Hyderabad when Shakib, a player for Sunrisers Hyderabad, expressed his desire to meet Aggarwal after getting more messages. Aggarwal was talking about bitcoin and dollar transactions and Shakib had suspicions that he was bookie.
The fact that Shakib met with Aggarwal and he messaged him twice in two different tournaments was a serious offence. The mistake which Shakib did was that he did not inform the Anti-Corruption Unit of the ICC of the meeting. When ACU officials met Shakib in August, he revealed only then about this whole situation.
he ICC Anti-Corruption Unit Code 2.4.4 clearly states, “Failing to disclose to the ACU (without unnecessary delay) full details of any approaches or invitations received by the Participant to engage in Corrupt Conduct under the Anti-Corruption Code. It is acknowledged that the assessment of whether there had been 'unnecessary delay' in each case will depend on its own circumstances, but it is always unacceptable (and will therefore constitute 'unnecessary delay') for a Participant to wait until after the match to engage in Corrupt Conduct before reporting that approach to the ACU.”
The reason for this code is because reporting any approach promptly and quickly will not cause any delay, which can hamper investigations.
Shakib has said that he has learnt from his mistakes and is eager to get back to Bangladesh cricket. Currently, he is in the USA and is expected to return before November 10. Had the situation been normal, Shakib would have missed the entire ICC World T20 due to the ban. However, the coronavirus pandemic has ensured that Shakib does not miss any ICC event and he continues on his glory to help Bangladesh achieve new heights.