'I never thought a board could be dissolved so nakedly'

Aminul Islam: I’m well, I’m in Bangladesh. I’m seeing the love of the people. I’m reviewing what I wanted to do as board president and how much I was able to do.

Aminul Islam: Above everything is the love I received from the people. And thinking about what I did as president, I would say Alhamdulillah. I worked with two boards. For the first four months, I ran a broken board. At one stage, I became alone, everyone was busy with the election.

I worked six months with the next board; throughout that time I was disturbed from outside and inside. I brought in a big “BCB Triple Century” programme; while implementing it I got full support from the board. But due to an external force and people from the fascist era inside, I could not fully realise it.

Still, I think we ran things transparently; I don’t think there is any failure. One failure being mentioned is not going to the World Cup. The New Zealand team is arriving (today) to play a series—if the government says this series cannot be played, can Bangladesh play? No. We have to follow the government.

Aminul Islam: You are a bit mistaken—I am still officially the BCB president. Those who have dissolved the board cannot do so; they do not have the authority. Khaled Masud and I went to Purbachal to see the ground. You could write an entire book on that ground—whose idea was that boat design, in whose name the stadium was, who else now has interest in that place—I was managing all of that. There are also people involved in running cricket who have interest in doing something else there.

Anyway, Pilot (Khaled Masud) was working on building three grounds and 18 wickets. I went to see that. When I returned to the BCB, I heard the board had been dissolved. Suddenly I felt our office had become a political office. Hundreds of people started coming and going. At one point Pilot requested me, “Brother, let’s leave.” At that time Fahim bhai, I, and Pilot were at the board. We were forced to leave. But I claim and believe that we are still the legitimate cricket board and I am the legitimate president.

Aminul Islam: Yes. Because there is no such thing as an ad hoc committee in the cricket board constitution. If those who came had brought a court order, then no matter how big a political party they were from, I would have had no question. But we have dignity. We left everything behind and came away with that dignity.

Aminul Islam: This is not a process; this is a conspiracy. Why do I say that? We have two bodies we work with—one is the ICC, which handles cricket governance and achievements. The other is the National Sports Council under the Ministry of Youth and Sports, of which the BCB is a member. The NSC has no authority to dissolve the board.

Their authority is to call and question us. If we did anything unethical, failed to run cricket properly, or the board proved unsuccessful, they could call us and ask questions; they could make recommendations.

I consider that committee illegal too. What investigation was done? We don’t even know what is written in the report, nor have we seen it. On what basis was this committee formed? A group of people who went to court several times. Then I saw this group always moving with the honorable state minister.

I asked to know their questions; I didn’t get them. And what they wanted to know—I didn’t feel there was any point in speaking with them. Because when their notification was published, what was written there already indicated they had written the answers in advance.

The lawyer in that committee had been involved with the BCB during the election—this is a conflict of interest. The entire committee—even the journalist there had done a podcast with a former director. To me, the whole thing felt somewhat like a joke.

Aminul Islam: I would say this to him: you have done great damage to cricket. I can mention two instances of his interference. On the first day, he directly called the CEO to allow journalists inside. Another was a few days ago, when a letter was sent from the BCB to the BCCI—he sat with the CEO and did it; I was only in copy. Who will take responsibility for this damage in the system? I will leave, maybe never come back. But you will remain—you have to save this cricket.

Aminul Islam: From the moment I became president, I saw their eagerness to enter the BCB. Now they have formed an ad hoc committee; their job is to hold elections, not increase salaries. Whatever they are doing is illegal. Increasing salaries felt to me like a kind of reward.

What you now see as COAB—add an ‘E’ before it. It is the Elite Cricketers Welfare Association. It represents those who play in the national team and first-class cricket, not the whole country. So increasing elite players’ salaries is a kind of reward, because they have served many people.

Aminul Islam: That was a dark day in my life. There should be an investigation into who was behind it. I know, but I won’t name them. Those who were there later apologised to me. They are star players of this country. They told me later, “We made a mistake, forgive us, we shouldn’t have done this.” We may have lost around Tk 15 million, but our image has shattered before the whole world.

Another interesting thing—the same day the matches stopped, an ICC delegation was supposed to arrive in Dhaka to discuss the World Cup. Why did the protest happen that day? Because of one person’s comment they stopped a big tournament like the BPL—I hate that.

Aminul Islam: I neither removed nor brought him back. We have a disciplinary committee; they made the decision. Based on their report, we took the decision.

Aminul Islam: I had been abroad for a long time, worked with 20 associate member countries, including Afghanistan. I saw a certain practice of government there. I also felt the country had changed—that sports and politics would not mix. We loudly say players cannot do politics, but how do politicians enter sports? Their job is politics.

At a major club, all those great politicians went and said that politics should not be mixed with sports—but what did we actually see in reality? I believed what they said. I never thought a board could be dismantled so nakedly. Or rather, driven out. I don’t think this has happened anywhere else in history.

Aminul Islam: I did not know the process beforehand. But as far as I learned, it followed the constitution fully. Take the constitution and analyse each step—bring High Court-settled issues forward and see where any irregularity happened. If someone withdraws candidacy out of fear of losing, why should that question the election?

No one can remove anyone; he stepped aside. And Ashraful becoming batting coach—he is an international cricketer, a Level 3 coach, passed a specialised batting course. Bangladesh’s batting was failing, so we needed a coach. We had other names, but we chose him.

Aminul Islam: No regret. But I feel for Bangladesh cricket. Just yesterday, 30 Level-3 coaches graduated. Abroad it would cost at least USD 450,000; here we did it for USD 20–30 thousand.

Through the Connect and Grow program, we wanted to bring talent from across the country—it didn’t happen. The board had no management structure; we covered that. Match-fixing decreased in the last BPL.

Eight cricket centers were planned; one has started in Sylhet. We finaliSed heads of cricket, HR, IT, digital—appointments were imminent. The selector we appointed was the national chief selector, overseeing divisional selectors. These works may not have been understood by the NSC. The pain of not finishing them will remain.

Aminul Islam: If you think materially, it was a huge mistake. But if you think of our duty—working for cricket, for the country—people sacrifice a lot; I only left a small job. The intellectual contribution I gave cannot be bought with money. I gave 45 years of experience and ideas for free.

Aminul Islam: I wonder too. My family lives in Australia; I stay in a hotel at my own expense. I sold land to manage expenses. There is no “honey” in the BCB—there is a lot of work.

Aminul Islam: I never spoke to anyone about that. Even when a 900-page BPL report came, I didn’t read a page. My thinking was—let people do their jobs.

Aminul Islam: They did it under pressure—maybe promised positions in the next board, or due to personal relations. One day they will say why.

Aminul Islam: On what basis do you call this committee legitimate? Give me two reasons.

Aminul Islam: They cannot do whatever they like.

Aminul Islam: I’ll tell that inside and outside story of ICC another day—not to you alone, to the whole world.

Aminul Islam: If an earthquake happens in Bangladesh now, will it be Tarique Rahman’s failure? Not playing was a government decision, for security reasons.

Aminul Islam: Not just fight—I waged a war. But I won’t show that publicly. At the meeting with adviser Asif Nazrul, 14–15 board directors in Dhaka had already made the decision. Our issue was security—why Mustafizur shouldn’t play IPL, why fans couldn’t wear jerseys safely. Our argument was not with India; we requested the ICC to move matches to Sri Lanka. Interestingly, when we wrote to the ICC that the Ireland Cricket Board had emailed saying that they were ready to support us and that there was no problem in changing the group. They didn’t just give us verbal assurance—they gave it in writing.

Aminul Islam: I won’t say that. There are two things here—one is the government’s decision, and the ICC’s inability to help. Later, when Pakistan said it would not play the match against India, more than Tk 2 trillion in losses were being projected. The ICC flew me to Lahore. If I had not signed at that time, the India–Pakistan match would not have taken place. You people wrote that not playing the World Cup would cause us losses worth hundreds of crores. Nothing like that happened.

Aminul Islam: Of course they should have been informed, and they were informed. Those who are saying this should ask themselves—they know everything. In the meeting with the sports adviser, no one said they wanted to go play. They were only expressing regret. Not a single person said, “We want to go.”

We ran the board independently. All responsibilities regarding players were under cricket operations. As far as I know, they did inform the players. These things cannot be said now. They did not firmly say in front of the adviser, “We want to go, please make arrangements.” We took the decision keeping in mind the safety of players, journalists of the country, and those who would go to watch the matches. However, we never said we would not play the World Cup. We said we would play, but the matches had to be held in Sri Lanka instead of India.

Aminul Islam: Let me start with journalists. They are angry with me because I do not pick up their calls or give interviews. I will tell you three stories. First, just before the election, someone who runs a major television channel called me and said he would start writing against me from today. I asked why. He said that the people who run their channel were endorsing someone else, so they would not speak in my favour. This is the standard of journalism in Bangladesh.

The second story is that a journalist spoke against me. When I asked why, he said because I do not pick up his calls or give him interviews. There is another person—what Asif Akbar calls a “chhapri content creator”—who has been spreading falsehoods about me for months. He even messaged me saying, “You have blocked my number, this is a new number. Can we go back to our previous relationship?”

Aminul Islam: For now, I may work with a research team—research on higher consciousness and mindfulness in cricket. I had a major job opportunity at the ACC, but two big countries vetoed it, so that may not happen. I have worked a lot. Let’s see—perhaps Allah has written something better for me. I will do research and write books, and that chapter will perhaps be a major one there as well. I will return to my family whom I had deprived while I worked for cricket.