Ashraful donates 3 months' salary in fight against COVID-19

After announcing he would auction some of the cricket memorabilia, former captain of Bangladesh national cricket team Mohammad Ashraful has donated three months' salary to the country's cononavirus (COVID-19) affected distressed people, reports UNB.

Following the footprints of Mushfiqur Rahim and Shakib Al Hasan, Ashraful earlier expressed his interest to auction his favourite cricket bats to raise funds for the victims of the deadly coronavirus in the country.

Ashraful, who suffered a five-year ban for match-fixing, returned to play domestic cricket in 2018 and was included in the central contract of BCB as a first class cricketer.

As one of the 91 contractual first class cricketers of BCB , Ashraful received Tk 85,000 from cricket board recently as his three months' salary and donated the entire amount for the novel cause.

Earlier, he decided to auction off his favourite cricket memorabilia - bats used to hit century in his Test debut against Sri Lanka in 2001 and his famous ODI century leading the country to a first win in any format against Australia in Cardiff in 2005.

Even the champagne gift that he received after beating Australia in Cardiff, still remains with Ashraful.

Later, Ashraful informed that he initially wants to auction one bat only, by which he defeated mighty Australia in 2005.

He wants to hold on to the Test debut century bat a bit longer.

Ashraful says he has always wanted to auction off his memorabilia in case of any disaster or epidemic and asked the capable persons to come forward for helping the distressed peoples.

"I still haven't opened the champagne I got after winning against Australia. That too can be put up for auction."

Earlier, national wicket-keeper batsman Mushfiqur Rahim was the first Bangladeshi cricketer to express his interest in auctioning his first double century bat.

Mushfiqur scored the first double century in test cricket as the first Bangladeshi cricketer.

Bangladeshi world famed all rounder Shakib Al Hasan has already auctioned his memorable ICC world cup playing bat for Tk 2 million.

Recent past national ODI captain Mashrafe bin Mortaza MP also expressed his desire to auction his used and favourite cricket gears for the novel cause.

Besides, national cricketers Tamim Iqbal, Rubel Hossein, Mohammad Ullah Riyad and some other cricketers, former national footballers and organisations extended their support for the cononavirus victims.