The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) disciplinary committee found Shahriar Nafees guilty of misconduct and imposed a ‘suspended sentence’ on the left-handed batsman.
The disciplinary committee talked with the player and team officials yesterday before taking the decision against the left-hander, who was sent back home because of misconduct before the third group game in Bangalore in the Shafi Darashah tournament last month.
“We found him guilty. He certainly breached the players’ code of conduct and he himself admitted that he made a mistake, and promised not to repeat this kind of behaviour in the future. We imposed a suspended sentence which means that a two-match ban will be automatically enforced if he makes the same kind of mistake within the next six months,” informed Sirajuddin Mohammad Alamgir, the director and chairman of BCB’s disciplinary committee.
“As a captain he cannot behave like he did on the tour, but what we believe is that sending him home was a kind of punishment in itself, which is why we wanted to give him a chance to redeem himself,” added Alamgir.
After this decision the till recently out-of-favour batsman is now available for selection. He will be hoping to be selected to play against the West Indies High Performance team which will arrive today for a tour of Bangladesh. The tour includes one four-day match against the National Cricket Academy team starting from September 16 at the Sheikh Abu Naser Stadium in Khulna, a second four-dayer against the Bangladesh A team starting from September 22 at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur where they will also play three one-day matches — on September 28, September 30 and October 2 — and two T20 matches on October 4 and October 5 against the same opponents.
Nafees admitted his mistake saying: “Had the dressing room been closed off to the public and not been so open, it wouldn’t have created so much trouble. I could have behaved better and if I had controlled myself, the situation wouldn’t have escalated. I hope the confusion regarding this matter goes away.”
“If I wasn’t captain, it wouldn’t have looked so bad. My behaviour had an adverse effect on my teammates, so I could have been a lot more responsible. If I had kept my cool, the incident wouldn’t have stretched for a month,” he added.
Nafees was not ready to relate this incident with the one he had with A team coach Stuart Barnes in Khulna during the practice prior to the tour of India.
“The two are separate incidents. We trained for two months and there wasn’t anything wrong in the relationship between players and management. I personally don’t want to see the two incidents being related. Whatever has happened is unfortunate,” he explained.
-With The Daily Star input
