Shakib Al Hasan, who was suspended in 2019 for failing to report an approach made by bookmakers during the Indian Premier League regrets his “silly mistake” of not reporting it to the ICC.
The Bangladeshi all-rounder was banned for two years, one year of it suspended, for failing to report corrupt approaches. Notably, an alleged Indian bookie approached Shakib during an IPL edition.
Recalling the ban imposed on him by ICC, Shakib Al Hasan admitted he took the bookies lightly. The star all-rounder also stressed that the ban could have been a dent on his entire career with a probable sanction of 5-10 years.
“I took the approaches too casually. When I met the anti-corruption guy and told them and they knew everything. Gave them all the evidence and they knew everything that happened, to be honest, that’s the only reason I was banned for a year, otherwise, I’d have been banned for five or 10 years”, Shakib told Harsha Bhogle on ‘Cricbuzz in Conversation’.
Took the bookies lightly – Shakib on ban
Shakib, arguably the greatest all-rounder in the history of Bangladesh deeply regrets his mistake with the kind of experience, he’s had in the international arena, that he should’ve informed the ICC Anti-corruption unit about the approach as soon as possible. He further added players should take such messages very seriously and report them at the earliest.
“But I think that was a silly mistake I made. Because with my experience and the number of international matches I’ve played and the amount of ICC’s anti-corruption code of conduct classes I took, I shouldn’t have made that decision, to be honest.”
“I regret that. No one should take such messages or calls (from bookies) lightly or leave it away. We must inform the ICC ACSU guy to be on the safe side and that’s the lesson I learnt, and I think I learnt a big lesson,” he added.
Shakib Al Hasan’s ban ends on 29th October this year. The veteran all-rounder revealed that he became a bit arrogant and realised it too late about the mistake he’s made. and had become hubristic about not reporting the approach as he never felt like he was doing something wrong.
“Because you do most things right in your life, you tend to get arrogant with some decisions. You may not realise but you’re doing wrong by the books. It never came to my mind that I am doing something wrong”, he added.
Hasan has picked up 562 wickets and scored over 10000 runs for Bangladesh across all three formats must be geared to make a comeback after his suspension gets over later this year.
