Shakib, from darling of the masses to enemy of the people

Posted by author November 6, 2024 Cricket

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Brendon McCullum miscues one and it’s caught at mid-on. The young bowler punches the air in celebration. On that crisp afternoon of October 18, 2008 in Chattogram (then Chittagong), McCullum becomes Shakib Al Hasan’s fourth wicket of the innings. He ends with 7 for 36, Bangladesh’s best bowling figures in Tests till Taijul Islam topped it with 8 for 39 in October 2014.

That feat, Shakib’s, came four weeks after Bangladesh cricket’s biggest tryst with controversy till that point. It was the 21-year-old Shakib’s seventh Test, he was just breaking in. Just a cricketer. No stardom. Simpler times.

Exactly 16 years later, on October 18, 2024, everything is different. Shakib is Bangladesh’s greatest cricketer ever, but is coming to the end of a stellar career. He is the country’s best-known face, the darling of brands. That’s the good part. There is also infamy. Shakib is now, by dint of an aborted political career, an accomplice to tyranny. An enemy of the people.

When Shakib was in Dubai in the third week of October, getting ready to travel to Dhaka, Bangladesh’s government officials told him not to board the flight as planned. He was expected to be part of the squad against South Africa, and retire after playing his farewell Test, the first of two in that series. But protests against his participation made it unsafe for him to go back home.

The protesters, part of the Mirpur Chhatro Janata, camped outside the Shere Bangla National Stadium, chanting slogans, holding up posters, spray-painting the stadium walls with strong words against Shakib. It was a small group of students but they represented the widespread outrage against Shakib – a member of the Awami League, which was overthrown following a students’/people’s protest in August. Shakib hasn’t return to Bangladesh since.

The world outside Bangladesh might find this all quite unfathomable. He is a cricketing hero, after all. Just keeping this to Test cricket, Shakib has had a glittering career.

However, the events of July and August are still fresh in the minds of those who lived through them. Shakib has always divided opinion, but that was about cricketing matters. Joining politics changed things. He is still their best cricketer. He isn’t their hero anymore.

Shakib’s entry into politics surprised many, given how busy his cricket calendar has been, and the fact that he didn’t live in Bangladesh anymore, having shifted his base to New York with his family since the pandemic. He only flies back to Bangladesh to play cricket and to shoot for commercials for his many endorsements.

But if you are a star in Bangladesh – and they don’t come much bigger than Shakib – it’s difficult to not get into politics, particularly the Awami League. A recent study showed that 67% of lawmakers in the country are businessmen, and 90% are millionaires. In the last two general elections, the Awami League had brought different professionals under their umbrella, including actors, singers, and sports personalities. Former Bangladesh captains Naimur Rahman and Mashrafe Mortaza were already in Team Awami League.

Cricket is important to politicians in Bangladesh, as it is in the neighbourhood in general. The government of the day handpicked the BCB bosses before Nazmul Hassan became the first elected board chief in 2013. The unanimous vote from the BCB directors for Nazmul was never in doubt, given his political background: his father Zillur Rahman was the country’s president when Nazmul was the interim board president prior to being elected to the position officially. Nazmul’s mother Ivy Rahman, herself a political heavyweight in Bangladesh in the late 1990s and early 2000s, died during of injuries suffered in a grenade attack at a political rally in 2004, where the intended target was Sheikh Hasina, the Awami League chief and the country’s prime minister till August.

Nazmul ramped up the political influence in the BCB during his 11-year reign. There were ministers, a mayor, and Sheikh Hasina’s cousins among the board directors. Second-level appointees, in the sub-committees, also had political connections and clout. During home international matches, BCB hired Awami League cadre as “security volunteers”.

Sheikh Hasina was more than involved. Nazmul told stories of how the then prime minister once abandoned her work files to spend time on the prayer mat when Tamim Iqbal was batting in the 90s. A young cricketer once narrated a story of how a mild scolding from Sheikh Hasina for bowling a couple of full tosses gave him sleepless nights. When Tamim retired in 2023, Hasina’s intervention forced him to reverse the decision within 24 hours. She was at matches in Mirpur often.

It is looking increasingly likely that Kanpur was Shakib’s last Test match. Only ODIs remain on his horizon but now that he has opted out of the Afghanistan series, the intended target of finishing his international career at the 2025 Champions Trophy look distant too

Shakib was one of Sheikh Hasina’s favourite cricketers.

He reportedly showed an interest in joining the party in 2018. Mashrafe got the Narail ticket that year but Shakib was in the queue. Apparently, Sheikh Hasina told Shakib to concentrate on his cricket at the time, with the promise that he would get a ticket to contest at the 2024 general elections. Sheikh Hasina kept her promise. And Shakib won. From Magura. In an election widely reported to have been rigged in favour of the Awami league.

When things turned bad for the party in July-August, Shakib automatically came in the line of the people’s fire.

The cricket-loving Bangladeshi public took a dim view of his participation in the controversial general elections. He was greeted with boos in the BPL this year. This was a first for Shakib. He has, in the past, shouted at umpires and even chased one with a bat once, but the public had always been on his side. Not anymore. Especially with Shakib not returning the Bangladesh and not issuing a statement at any stage during or immediately after the revolution in the country.

On July 30, while playing a Global T20 Canada match in Brampton, Shakib was heckled by Bangladeshis in the crowd. He argued with a fan who had asked him about his silence on the unrest back home. Two weeks after the fall of the Awami League government, Shakib was among 147 people against whom charges had been filed in connection with an alleged murder in Dhaka. This happened when he was playing the first Test against Pakistan in Rawalpindi.

In an interview to Bongo aired in June this year, Shakib said that when the BCB had banned him for six months for “serious misbehaviour” with the then head coach Chandika Hathurusinghe in 2014, he got a fair understanding of the Bangladeshi psyche. He said that being kept away from cricket tore him apart and the first few days were the toughest. But later, he learnt how to behave with certain individuals and convinced them to reduce the ban, he said.

So what has he learnt this time?

Shakib hasn’t visited Bangladesh since May this year. He was with the national team till the T20 World Cup before linking up with teams in MLC and Global T20 Canada. He played Tests in Pakistan and India, and in between played a county game in Taunton. He announced his retirement from Test and T20I cricket during the Kanpur Test, where he wished to play his last Test in Dhaka, starting October 21.

Not long after, in a Facebook post, Shakib apologised for his silence during the protests. His fans felt that that he had done what was expected of him after the tragic deaths of students and others in the country, but his detractors felt it was mere lip-service.

Soon after, the protesting students were back on the streets, asking the BCB to remove Shakib from the Test team. On October 18, Hasan Murad took his place in the squad. There is still no final word about Shakib, but it is looking increasingly likely that Kanpur was his last Test match. Only ODIs remain on his horizon but now that he has opted out of the Afghanistan series, the intended target of finishing his international career at the 2025 Champions Trophy look distant too.

But why did a giant like Shakib have such a fall? Did he deserve what’s come to him? Did he invite it?

Shakib willingly added the badges of politician and businessman to his status as a celebrated sportsperson. He has given Bangladeshis several reasons to be proud of when it comes to the game, but he might have failed in other areas – like as a role model, a hero, to millions in their moment of crisis. The opinion of the people might change one day, but this will remain a big part of his legacy, which he can’t shed whether he likes it or not.

Mohammad Isam is ESPNcricinfo’s Bangladesh correspondent. @isam84