The incident had once infuriated the cricketers so much that a day of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) had to be halted. In protest against offensive remarks about players, they had boycotted a match demanding the resignation of Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) director M Najmul Islam. Yet, within just a few days, it seems the cricketers have ‘forgotten’ that humiliation.
On 15 January, speaking to newspersons in Mirpur about whether players would receive compensation if they did not participate in the T20 World Cup, Najmul, head of BCB’s finance department, said, “We are spending so much on them, yet they achieve nothing anywhere. Have we received a single international title to date? How much are we able to accomplish anywhere?”
He also made other disrespectful remarks, which even BCB officially expressed dissatisfaction about. Najmul was served a show-cause notice with 48 hours to respond.
Later, under pressure from the players, BCB immediately removed him from the position of head of the finance committee. The players’ organisation, Cricketers Welfare Association of Bangladesh (CWAB), however, had demanded that he step down from his directorship entirely.
After two dramatic days, BCB promised the players that Najmul would publicly apologise for his remarks. The players returned to the field the next day on this assurance, but BCB did not uphold it, and apparently there was no need to. It seems the players themselves had forgotten the promise made by BCB.
Najmul has not publicly apologised, and was instead reinstated as head of the finance committee.
Surprisingly, CWAB has shown little reaction to this decision, seemingly stepping back from their earlier firm stance on self-respect.
Asked for a reaction, CWAB president Mohammad Mithun told Prothom Alo, “We made our demand, the board gave a promise. Now the board has not kept it; that is entirely their problem.”
He added that since Najmul did not apologise, they have little to say on the matter. This raises the question: if that is the case, why did they adopt such a strict stance before, boycotting the BPL match?
Earlier, confusion arose over Najmul’s reinstatement when BCB media committee head Amzad Hossain contradicted it.
On 25 January, Najmul told Prothom Alo that the previous night’s board meeting had decided to reinstate him as head of the finance committee. But Amzad denied this to Prothom Alo, saying no such decision had been made, and repeated the same claim at a press conference after the board meeting.
Attempts to contact Amzad for explanation today, Monday, were unsuccessful as he did not answer his phone.
BCB had announced Najmul’s removal from the finance committee in a press release, but his reinstatement appears to have been handled quietly.
This became public today through a message shared in BCB’s media department WhatsApp group, which also mentioned that BCB granted Tk 500,000 to scorer Saidur Rahman for kidney treatment.
A photo of the cheque handover shows Najmul, identified there as head of BCB’s finance committee.