A case of inappropriate action

ARTICLE CORRECTED at 6:00pm (28 August, 2018). In the original version, the BCB CEO was misquoted as saying that they were waiting for the BCB president to return from Hajj to take a decision on the disciplinary actions against the players. He had in fact said that the BCB president gave some guidelines before departing. We regret the error. 

When news filtered through Sunday that young Bangladesh batsman Mosaddek Hossain was being sued by his wife of six years, it was not a big surprise because young players' personal lives becoming more newsworthy than their performances is now a common phenomenon.

Not long ago, Nasir Hossain found himself in trouble because he was a participant in an unsavoury Youtube video. During the tour of West Indies in July, batsman Sabbir Rahman unleashed a foul-mouthed tirade on a Facebook user who criticised his performance.

Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) CEO Nizamuddin Chowdhury had then said "if such a breach [of discipline] has occurred it will be referred to the disciplinary committee and appropriate action taken."

The first of the two actions that the CEO promised is simple enough -- he informed yesterday that Sabbir and Mosaddek would be called up before the disciplinary committee soon to give their version of events -- but the 'appropriate action' part has been a complicated issue as far as the board is concerned.

While all three incidents have the common thread of the concerned players being unable to manage their personal lives to the standard required by people in the public eye, Sabbir's issue is a deeper one because of the severity and frequency of his disciplinary breaches.

In the 2016 Bangladesh Premier League, Sabbir was fined Tk 12 lakh by the BCB for breaching curfew; in December 2017 he assaulted a young fan in Rajshahi during a National Cricket League match and the BCB subsequently banned him from domestic cricket for six months and levied a Tk 25 lakh fine. This is where the appropriate action comes in -- Sabbir was allowed to play international cricket even after the grave offence of hitting a minor, even when it is known that international cricket is the be all and end all for young Bangladeshi cricketers.

"The BCB president [Nazmul Hassan] is out of the country [for Hajj]," Nizamuddin told reporters in Mirpur yesterday. "Before he left he gave us some guidelines and some decisions have been taken in principle -- you will be informed of them shortly."

It also has to be asked whether Sabbir's claim two days after the latest incident that his account -- by then deactivated -- had been hacked was made with the team management's blessings, which would make the guardians as misguided as the one who got caught.

"We have to take sterner action, because these things keep happening," Nizamuddin added. That will require as much a change in character from the BCB as they want from their players.