NEWS
Follow UsBangladesh’s ace all-rounder Shakib al Hasan will continue playing cricket until proven guilty, the national board said on August 27 (Tuesday). The 37-year-old is facing a case of alleged murder connected to unrest that toppled the government earlier this month.
Bangladesh endured weeks of student-led protests that resulted in Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fleeing to India by helicopter on August 5, ending 15 years of autocratic rule. Rafiqul Islam, the father of one of the hundreds killed during the civil unrest, filed a murder case against Shakib and 155 others in Dhaka on Thursday.
According to a report in Cricbuzz, a lawyer of the Supreme Court sent a legal notice to the Bangladesh Cricket Board asking Shakib to be removed from all 'forms' of cricket with immediate effect. The notice also demands that Shakib, who is currently playing a Test series in Pakistan, be brought back to Bangladesh.
Bangladesh have already won the first Test and taken a 1-0 lead in the two-match series. The left-arm spinner picked up three wickets in the second innings and played a major role in Bangladesh’s historic 10-wicket win in Rawalpindi.
"He [Shakib] will continue playing. We received a legal notice regarding bringing him back, and we replied to them saying this [that he will continue to play]," BCB president Faruque Ahmed was quoted in a leading Bengali Daily Prothom Alo.
"Right now, the FIR is filed, and it is in the initial stage, and there are a lot of steps after this, and until he is proven guilty, we will make him play. The Bangladesh team will go to India after the Pakistan series, and we want him in that series as well. He is our contracted player, and if necessary, we will give him legal assistance.”
Shakib will then travel to England to play a County game for Surrey. "He has not played red-ball cricket for a while and that is why we have given him an NOC to play for Surrey as it will help him to adjust with red-ball cricket more than anything else," a BCB official confirmed Cricbuzz.
Bangladesh are scheduled to play two Tests, starting on September 19, and three T20Is in India.
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