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A reluctant captain at the centre of mess
NABID YEASIN
From aspirations of making it to their maiden semifinal to barely qualifying for the 2025 Champions Trophy with an eighth-placed finish, Bangladesh’s World Cup dream has fluctuated as wildly as its tumultuous state of affairs.
If looked closely, at the core of the fiasco, two entities could be found -- skipper Shakib Al Hasan and his enabler, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB).
At 36, Shakib just wanted to play in what he said was going to be his World Cup swansong. He had clearly mentioned in a much-talked-about interview that he had no intention of leading the Tigers in the mega event and was only made to do so at the behest of the BCB.
So, questions could be raised as to why BCB -- a board that always claims to prioritise long-term planning over anything else -- would send a team to the World Cup under someone who was reluctant to lead in the first place?
Is it because there were no other suitable candidates to take the helm? If so, then that contradicts the long-stated claims of a rich pipeline and the depth of the national team’s pool of players.
While that is a part played by the country’s cricketing governing body in the Tigers’ recent slump, Shakib and the team management including head coach Chandika Hathurusingha only furthered the downward spiral.
Hathurusingha could be inquired about how the bunch of players that had seen Bangladesh do decently in ODIs just months ago had lost their mojo and balance in the most crucial time while Shakib would have to justify his off-field antics more than his underwhelming on-field performances.
Despite being forcibly burdened with the captaincy, expectations on Shakib were still very high, especially after his superhuman effort in the same tournament four years ago.
Dealing with such pressure and cancelling out the outside noise has never been an issue for a champion cricketer like Shakib. In fact, followers of Bangladesh cricket know how he had made a pattern of covering up his off-field misdoings with immediate brilliance with the willow and the ball.
But this time, things proved to be different. After being part of the chaotic process of team selection for the World Cup that saw Tamim Iqbal being left out at the last minute, Shakib only managed to drum up more controversy and almost no superhuman act on the field to cover it up.
Shakib’s trip to Dhaka for a few solo practice sessions with his mentor midway through the World Cup was followed by the Tigers hitting the nadir of their already abysmal campaign -- an 87-run thumping at the hands of associate member, the Netherlands, in a game where Shakib made five with the bat and scalped just a solitary wicket.
Also, for the first time in a long while, Shakib even looked to have let the pressure get to him when he struggled for eight deliveries before finally opening his account in the game against Pakistan.
Shakib’s World Cup campaign ended with a player-of-the-match performance against Sri Lanka, but his overall 2023 World Cup figures of 186 runs at 26.57 average and nine wickets may be an outcome befitting the visible shift of focus Shakib’s career has seen in the last few years.
Since coming out of his ICC-sanctioned ban for failing to report corrupt approaches in 2020, Shakib has anything but stayed away from controversies. From having affiliations with betting sites, kicking stumps, arguing with on-field umpires, returning to the country for personal reasons in the middle of the Asia Cup 2023 in Sri Lanka to inaugurating jewellery shops of a fugitive criminal – Shakib could not have made it more apparent about his priorities and reluctance to fall into line.
Maybe Shakib had things clear in his mind long before his reflection on the matter came to the fore when he said in that interview, “Would that [captaining Bangladesh in this World Cup] add any value to my career at this stage?”
Perhaps Shakib knew all along what he was taking the team into and only tried to deflect the blame in case things went south when he admitted to not being willing to be in the leadership role ahead of the World Cup.
Shakib is used to evading the true repercussions of his antics, mostly by riding on the BCB's reluctance to do anything about those. It might not be any different for Shakib this time too but the same can not be said of Bangladesh cricket which will have to suffer the real consequences of always accommodating a reluctant performer.