Great waste of immense potential
For a good few years in the last decade, two young players were regarded as the next big things in Bangladesh cricket's white-ball formats: Nasir Hossain and Sabbir Rahman.
Street-smart batting, swift fielding and shrewd bowling made Nasir a great all-round package, and it was not long before he captured the imagination of the fans.
Sabbir, on the other hand, impressed everyone with his natural ability to take on fast bowlers and muscle the ball over the ropes. His fielding and part-time leg-spin bowling was an added plus.
But those days are long gone, as Nasir and Sabbir have joined the long list of promising prospects in Bangladesh cricket who could not live up to their potential.
On Tuesday, Nasir was on the lips of the country's sports fans after a long while, albeit for the wrong reasons.
The ICC handed the 32-year-old a two-year ban with six-month suspension for breaching the ICC Anti-Corruption Code while playing in the Abu Dhabi T10 League in 2021.
Nasir was found guilty for accepting the gift of an iPhone 12 and not disclosing it to ICC's Anti-Corruption Unit. The all-rounder will be able to return to the game from April 7, 2025.
Nasir's ban, although disheartening, was hardly a shock as the all-rounder has long made it a habit of getting himself tangled in off-field scandals.
From Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hassan Papon publicly criticising his cavalier lifestyle to embarrassing call recordings of him being leaked, and having to appear in court for an adultery case in 2022, Nasir has made more headlines for his personal life than cricket in the last few years.
The chaos of his personal life, inevitably, bled into his on-field performances and a number of injuries worsened his situation.
The all-rounder did not play a match for the Tigers since 2018 and will be nearing 34 when his ICC ban ends, which further diminishes any chance of him donning the Bangladesh jersey ever again.
Right around the time when Nasir first started falling out of favour in the national team, Sabbir came into the picture.
Sabbir had many keen supporters, none more than perhaps the erstwhile captain Mashrafee Bin Mortaza who stuck with him for a long time despite sporadic results.
But with time, the right-hander started getting embroiled in controversies which derailed his progression.
Sabbir was fined by BCB during the 2016 Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) for allegedly entertaining female guests at his hotel room. A year later, he was banned for six months from domestic cricket for hitting a fan in the stands and served a similar ban from international cricket in 2018 for abusing fans online.
The 32-year-old batter is not in the national team's radar right now. He has not been part of the Bangladesh team since October 2022 and now is seen playing in amateur leagues in the US.
The careers of Nasir and Sabbir, who were part of the same age-level setup, are the perfect example of how a lack of discipline and off-field shenanigans can seriously derail the career of a cricketer. Their careers also highlight the importance of preparing cricketers for the bright lights of international cricket well in advance, so that they do not get blinded by fame and fortune that comes with the Bangladesh jersey.