Ashraful vs Gladiators?

The ongoing spot fixing crisis from last year’s Bangladesh Premier League seems likely to lead to a clash between Mohammed Ashraful and his franchise, the Dhaka Gladiators.    Over the last few days, unauthenticated information of what happened when the former national skipper met with an ICC anti-corruption team last week has been leaked to the media. It is being said that Ashraful has admitted to wrong doing in certain matches, and that he claimed that it was the franchise owners who instructed him to do so.   The situation has left Dhaka Gladiators owner Salim Chowdhury annoyed. Salim however, cannot reply officially since he has not been contacted yet by the Bangladesh Cricket Board or the ACSU.   “Every day, I am learning and hearing new things when I turn the pages in the newspapers. I was shocked to learn that Ashraful has given statement saying that he did wrong in the games because we wanted, this is simply ridiculous,” Salim told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.   The franchise’s leadership is also irritated that all the loose talk flying around is adversely affecting other players.   “We have already seen many of our cricketers attend hearings by the ACSU. We also want to go to the root of all the happenings but so far, everything is not on track,” said Salim.   The franchise has been unable to communicate with Ashraful himself. They failed to reach him several time, and yesterday, learnt that he had left for England.    “I am facing thousands of questions at the moment. People are calling me over the phone every single minute to learn what’s happening, and it is sad that I can’t even talk to the guy (Ashraful),” said the Gladiators owner.   Back in February, Dhaka lost matches to Chittagong Kings and Barisal Burners in suspicious circumstances. Beyond the media, even the eyebrows of Ashraful’s teammates were raised at the happenings in those matches.   All-rounder Shakib Al Hasan’s run out in the Barisal game looked peculiar, as Ashraful called him for a run only to step back. Shakib, upon his return to the dressing room, threw his bat on the floor and shouted that the senior man had run him out deliberately.    Later that night at a team meeting, the foreign recruits as well as a few local players refused to play any more matches if Ashraful were in the team. The situation calmed down overnight and Ashraful was included in the next game against Khulna.   However, he batted lower down the order and fielded at a position where he had minimal responsibility.