Sabbir in hot water for alleged assault
Sabbir Rahman had scored 38 runs in four innings of two Tests and 19, 17 and 39 in the three ODIs he played on the tour of South Africa. The 26-year old right-hander then flopped in the fifth edition of the Bangladesh Premier League as a Sylhet Sixers icon player. There was no respite for him ahead of the home series against Sri Lanka in January as he made a duck in the final-round match of the National Cricket League (NCL); instead he has invited more trouble with an off-field incident.
Sabbir reportedly assaulted a young fan during that NCL match in Rajshahi on December 21. According to sources, after a boy made a noise directed at Sabbir during the innings break when he was batting in the nets, Sabbir asked his teammates to take the field and that he would join them a few minutes later. He then instructed his acquaintance to bring the young boy into the playing area and subsequently assaulted the young fan. Sabbir was also quite "aggressive" with match referee Showkatur Rahman and other match officials and is said to have threateningly told them not to file any complaints against him, but Showkatur submitted his report to the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB).
BCB CEO Nizamuddin Chowdhury confirmed the news of a report from the match referee and said: "We have received the match referee's report and forwarded it to the disciplinary committee."
BCB sources informed that the national batsman is going to face a heavy financial penalty, if not penalties including multiple-match ban, in addition to a fine of Tk 5 lakh in the case of level-4 offences under the ICC code of conduct. Heavy financial punishment was however nothing new to Sabbir, who had fined around Tk 12 lakh for "serious off-field disciplinary breaches" during the BPL in November 2016 after he reportedly entertained female guests in his hotel room.
His short career has been dotted with disciplinary issues. There was an incident during the ODI match against Afghanistan in September 2016, and the very next month the team management had warned him to watch his behaviour.
It is understandable that the BCB is going to take stern action against Sabbir but this issue raised a question of whether the game's governing body follows any uniformity regarding disciplinary issues. If they did, how is it possible that Test skipper Shakib Al Hasan and his deputy Mahmudullah Riyad are yet to face any consequences for their absence without permission from the final-round match of the NCL.
Nizamuddin confirmed yesterday that the two cricketers did not submit any letter for their leave even though there was a clear directive from the board to take part in the NCL final round. On the other hand, Tamim Iqbal was pulled up before a disciplinary committee for merely criticising a pitch during the BPL.
BCB president Nazmul Hassan made it clear since assuming office in 2012 that he would show 'zero tolerance' in regards to disciplinary issues.
Hassan's bold initiatives towards the investigation of the BPL scandal and action against star all-rounder Shakib in July 2014 were highly praised and demonstrated fidelity to his promise.
Critics believed that those steps sent a strong message to cricketers but the reluctant approach this time towards Shakib and Riyad has cast doubt over the board's professionalism in creating a level field when tackling disciplinary breaches.
Sabbir's latest act was no doubt an odious one, and if proven he should face the harshest sanctions. But it must also be asked if a player like Sabbir was emboldened thinking that a competition like the NCL was not important enough for disciplinary breaches to come under BCB's purview, given the leniency shown to Shakib and Riyad.