Crash: Distressing response to cricket’s most damaging disease
What does it say about the game when “one of the best all-rounders to ever play” is found guilty interacting with a dodgy bookmaker and no one bats an eyelid? asks ROBERT CRADDOCK.
Cricket
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The distressing thing about cricket’s top all-rounder being banned for interacting with a dodgy bookmaker is that no-one seems particularly distressed by it.
Not cricket fans (outside Bangladesh). Not officials. Or even the media. Collectively we are punch drunk over the corruption issue.
Nothing shocks any more – even if it should.
Bangladesh’s superstar all-rounder Shakib al Hasan has been banned for a year by the International Cricket Council for failing to report three approaches from a bookmaker whose dealings have long been a focus of the game’s corruption police.
The tone of the WhatsApp messages from Dubai bookmaker Deepak Aggarwal to Shakib were, quite frankly, disturbing.
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It’s not as if Aggarwal started with “let me introduce myself …’’
Instead he wrote in January last year: “Do we work in this or I wait until IPL?’ and, the equally intriguing, “Bro anything in this series?”
He certainly didn’t sound like a stranger to the man he was conversing with.
One of the messages asked for Shakib’s bank account details before Shakib told the bookie he wanted to meet him “first’’.
Some people have criticised the ICC for failing to conclude whether there was any deeper links between the two but there was a hint of Al Capone’s tax evasion charges with this one.
The ICC nailed the charges that were beyond dispute.
The messages confirmed that there had been contact between the player and bookmaker so it was an iron clad case which the player could not deny.
What happened beyond the initial contact is not known and we make no accusations.
But it must be said the one-year ban still seems like a pathetically light sentence for a rule breach which leading Indian commentator Harsha Bhogle described as “very, very puzzling … enormously baffling … this is something I want to hear a lot more of.’’
After his sentence was announced Shakib said all the right things about working with authorities and helping youngsters avoid similar traps but nothing he said changed the thinking that if anyone should have been above this sort of rubbish it was him.
A few years ago he endorsed the five year ban to former Bangladesh captain Mohammad Ashraful for being involved in corruption.
He has played for teams all around the world in competitions like the Big Bash where players are warned – and warned again – about the poisoned fruit offered by bookmakers. Even under-19 teams get this lecture.
He is a luminary of the game, adored by his home fans and hugely respected worldwide.
To Bangladesh cricket this was like the moral earthquake which rocked South African cricket 20 years ago when god-faring skipper Hansie Cronje had his links with bookmakers unveiled (admittedly on the more serious charges of taking money to corrupt games).
Shakib is an extraordinary cricketer. He is Bangladesh’s best batsman and bowler – a rare feat – and has dominated the ICC’s rankings for all-rounders for years.
It used to be a quirky quiz question – name the all-rounder who tops the ICC rankings – but with time he has been appreciated as being what his Cricinfo profile says he is … “one of the best all-rounders to ever play the game.’’
Australia is playing a Test series in Bangladesh next year and with Shakib out of action it’s almost as if Bangladesh have lost their entire engine room.
This time next year he will be back but his reputation will never be the same – and nor should it be.
Originally published as Crash: Distressing response to cricket’s most damaging disease