Shakib Al Hasan banned for failure to report approaches from bookie, confirms ICC
Shakib Al Hasan was banned by the ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) for failure to report several approaches from an alleged bookie by the name of Deepak Aggarwal. At the interviews conducted by the ACU, Shakib admitted that Agarwal had sought inside information from him at least thrice.
When Shakib was approached by the ACU to be interviewed in person, first on January 23 and then on August 27, he readily accepted all the charges against his name.
"During these interviews, Mr Al Hasan was cautioned that the answers and information provided by him could be used as evidence to support a charge or charges in relation to a breach of the Code, if they revealed that Mr Al Hasan might have breached the Code, either by acting corruptly himself or by failing to report corrupt approaches or corrupt actions by others. After receiving these cautions, Mr Al Hasan admitted various failures to report approaches made to him to provide Inside Information to Mr Aggarwal," the ICC said in a statement, reported ESPNCricinfo.
Although the verdict on Shakib, one of the premier all-rounders the game has ever seen, is clear as day — a two-year ban from all cricketing activities — nobody knows why he failed to report the approaches to the ACU. In fact, the Bangladesh Test and T20I skipper has previously reported corrupt approaches. All we do know, as of now, are the details of the conversation between Aggarwal and Shakib that led to this sanction.
As per the information released by the ICC, Aggarwal got in touch with Shakib in November 2017, when he was playing for the Dhaka Dynamites in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL). It is understood that Aggarwal obtained Shakib's contact by an unnamed person who was close to the player. Aggarwal tried to arrange a meeting with Shakib over the course of several WhatsApp messages, but the cricketer wouldn’t budge.
Later, on January 19, 2018, Aggarwal congratulated Shakib on his Man-of-the-Match winning performance as Bangladesh defeated Sri Lanka and followed it with a cryptic message.
"Mr Aggarwal followed this message with a message saying "do we work in this or I wait til the IPL". The reference to "work" in this message was a reference to him providing Inside Information to Mr Aggarwal," the statement said.
Four days later, Aggarwal sent a more explicit message to Shakib: "Bro anything in this series?" Shakib opted not to report either approach to the ACU, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB), or any other relevant body. Again, on April 26, 2018, Aggarwal messaged Shakib on the day of his franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad’s home match against Kings XI Punjab during the IPL.
"He received a WhatsApp message from Mr Aggarwal that day asking him whether a particular player was going to be playing in the game that day, i.e. again asking for Inside Information. Mr Aggarwal continued this conversation with him by talking about bitcoins, dollar accounts and asked him for his dollar account details. During this conversation, he told Mr Aggarwal that he wanted to meet him "first"," the statement said.
During the interviews, Shakib admitted to the ACU that he had deleted several other messages from this third WhatsApp conversation on April 26. Although he said that he grew concerned, he did not report the approach.
"He confirmed that he had concerns over Mr Aggarwal, feeling he was a bit "dodgy", and that, following their conversations, he had the feeling that Mr Aggarwal was a bookie," the ICC statement added.
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