Bangladesh all-round cricketer Shakib Al Hasan has been handed a couple of years ban by the International Cricket Council (ICC) after he failed to report corrupt approaches made to him. The approaches were reportedly made to him on multiple occasions beginning late 2017.
Consequently, the southpaw was found guilty of breaching ICC Anti-Corruption Code and on Tuesday was charged for not reporting these corrupt approaches. These approaches have reportedly been made to him from an alleged Indian bookie by the name of Deepak Aggarwal. The approaches were made to him twice during a tri-series between Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe in January 2018 and once during the world’s richest cricketing league- the Indian Premier League in April 2018.
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After thorough investigation, during which ICC also interviewed Hasan a couple of times in relation to the same incident and in suspicion of involvement of the Aggarwal, the following details were revealed.
1. It was during the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) in November 2017 that Shakib came to know that his contact number had in fact been given to Aggarwal by a third person known to Shakib. Aggarwal had asked this third person to give contact details of the other players playing in the league.
2. In November 2017, after Aggarwal instigated him, Shakib went on to exchange various Whatsapp messages with him. In these messages Aggarwal seemed keen on meeting Shakib.
3. During the tri-series involving Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe in January 2018, Shakib received another Whatsapp message from Aggarwal congratulating him for being adjudged Man of the Match. He then sent a follow up message which read, “do we work in this or I wait til the IPL”.
4. “Work” in the above mentioned message was nothing but an attempt to get inside information from Shakib. However, Shakib failed to bring this to the notice of Anti-Corruption Unit.
5. On January 23, 2018, Shakib received yet another Whatsapp text which read, ” Bro anything in this series?,” another approach made to him. However, he never reported the incident to the authorities concerned.
6. On April 26, 2018, Shakib participated in an IPL game between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kings XI Punjab. He had received another message in relation to this match which asked him whether a particular player was playing the match or not, again asking for inside information.
However, Shakib did not report even this incident to the Anti-Corruption Authorities.
The highest-earning 32-year-old Bangladesh cricketer can only return to International Cricket from 29 October, 2020. This implies that he would miss the Indian Premier League next year and will not be available for selection in the T20 World Cup in Australia.