Rokibul desires to return

Rokibul Hasan took another step yesterday in his bid to return to competitive cricket. The retired cricketer has submitted a letter in this regard to the Bangladesh team’s operations manager Shafiqul Haque, informed a Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) director.
“Yes he has submitted a letter,” confirmed Enayet Hussain Siraj, the BCB’s cricket operations committee chairman.
Though the nature of the letter could not immediately be known, but according to sources, Rokibul has admitted that his sudden retirement was a mistake. He apologised to the cricket board and said he wanted to return to cricket.
It is now widely expected that Rokibul awaits severe punishment from the cricket board who will take a dual view of the whole incident.
Merely a week earlier, the right-handed batsman took a flight out of Chittagong just two days ahead of the first Test against England. He had broken the news of his retirement to his shocked Tigers teammates who tried to talk him out of it.
Rokibul’s latest initiative came two days after the batsman met BCB president AHM Mustafa Kamal at his office. There was speculation on Monday that Rokibul was going to submit an apologetic letter to the chief, but the letter came BCB’s way only yesterday.
The cricket board had earlier given him an ultimatum of seven days to reverse his decision.
His appeal will be discussed in a meeting by BCB’s evaluation and technical committee today. Members of the committee Siraj, Gazi Ashraf Hossain, Dewan Shafiul Arefin and Jalal Yunus will deliberate the letter and give their recommendations in a BCB meeting to be held tomorrow.
The cricket board is set to consider two things during the March 19 meeting. Firstly, they would consider the batsman’s career. Since he’s only twenty-two, some of the BCB directors could take a lighter stance against him with only financial repercussions.
But the BCB also has to look at the wider angle — Bangladesh cricket. And as such, the punishment could be exemplary. Some have suggested that Rokibul be given a two-year ban and a substantial fine.
Rokibul, in his first statement to the media, said that he retired out of spite with the cricket board after he was dropped for the Test match in New Zealand, the one-day series against England and the 30-man World Twenty20s preliminary squad. The Jamalpur lad said that his plan was to get into the side first and then retire, in an apparent bid to take stance against the board for dropping him.
The day after Rokibul had announced his retirement, Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan came out strongly and questioned whether the board would take action against Rokibul’s ’emotional’ decision.
Shakib referred to two previous occurrences that could have prompted Rokibul into the action. Shahriar Nafees had withdrawn from a tour to Australia in 2008 citing a university exam before skipping off to the rebel Indian Cricket League. Mashrafe Bin Mortaza had also left the team hotel in Dhaka after the first one-dayer against England after an alleged fall-out with team high-ups.

Courtesy of The Daily Star