Bangladesh Cricket Board is yet to reach a solution on their latest issue with star and controversial cricketer Shakib al Hasan regarding the latter’s involvement with a sister concern of a betting organization.
Shakib last Tuesday irked many in the cricket fraternity after he announced involvement with Betwinner News, which is a surrogate promotion of online betting and gaming portal Betwinner.
Betwinner holds a valid online gambling license from the government of Curacao and is under parent company 1X Corp N.V.
The company owns many other online betting portals including the most famous one – 1xbet.
BCB president Nazmul Hasan following Shakib’s revelation of endorsing Betwinner News said the board cannot allow involvement of its contracted cricketers to firms that the laws of the land do not permit and that a show cause notice was to be served to the all-rounder.
Nazmul had claimed that Shakib did not inform or obtain the No Objection Certificate from the board before going into the collaboration with Betwinner.
BCB cricket operations committee chairman Jalal Younus while speaking to the media Monday informed that they are yet to solve the issue and believes that Shakib as an experienced cricketer will surely understand the point the board has established.
“We are in contact with him [Shakib] over the issue. We already spoke to him several times about this. We need to solve this matter, hopefully we will be able to that in a day or two,” said BCB director Jalal.
It is understood that Shakib has already placed his argument to the BCB with regards to the issue.
According to reports, Shakib has questioned the board as to why he should not be allowed to endorse Betwinner News, given that it’s simply a news portal and has no relation to betting.
Jalal while clarifying the point said, “It [Betwinner News] might not be involved with betting but it is owned by a betting company. We [BCB] have zero tolerance towards such organizations. His [Shakib] contract is with a company owned by a betting organization. We have already informed him this.
“BCB is not accepting his [Shakib] involvement [with Betwinner News] and he is now well informed of it. We believe he as our player will understand the matter. No one wants to get involved in a controversy, so we have made sure Shakib understands our point, we hope he will soon solve it.”
Related to this issue is BCB’s dilemma in naming the T20I captain.
The board was almost on the brink of announcing Shakib the T20I skipper for the upcoming Asia Cup Twenty20 and T20 World Cup 2022.
However, this dispute has forced the board to delay its decision, along with the announcement of the Asia Cup squad.
