‘Hijacked by people who have never even held a bat...’: Official slams BCCI, BCB

Former Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) general secretary and ex-Asian Cricket Council (ACC) CEO Syed Ashraful Haque, in an interview given to Times of India, strongly criticised political interference in cricket administration, calling the ongoing controversy involving Mustafizur Rahman and Bangladesh’s participation in the T20 World Cup “ridiculous” and “a parody”.

As per the TOI interview, Haq stated that the cricket system across India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan had been completely taken over by politicians. He said that such a situation would never have occurred if experienced administrators like Jagmohan Dalmia, IS Bindra, Madhavrao Scindia, NKP Salve, or N Srinivasan were in charge, as they understood the game and its wider implications. According to him, the system is now dominated by people who have no practical cricketing experience, citing Jay Shah as an example, who he claimed had never even played a competitive match.

In the interview, Haque questioned Bangladesh’s leadership as well, criticising rash statements from the country’s sports advisor that the team should not travel to India.

Haque suggested that if the situation had involved players like Litton Das or Soumya Sarkar instead of Mustafizur Rahman, the same actions would not have been taken. He described the controversy as politically motivated and argued that politicians were exploiting cheap religious sentiment. Haque also noted that practical solutions to such issues had been successfully implemented in the past.

Citing the ‘brotherly’ diplomatic and cricketing ties between India and Bangladesh over the years, the cricket ‘well-wisher’ seemed to be advocating cooperation for greater cricketing success.