Former cricketer Gautam Gambhir believes Bangladesh will definitely feel the absence of great all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan during the T20I series against India, starting Sunday (November 3) in Delhi.
Shakib has been banned for two years, one of those suspended, by ICC for failing to report corrupt approaches from an alleged bookie.
"One way or other, Bangladesh are already a wicket down and India are 40 without loss as that is what Shakib is worth," Gambhir wrote in his column for Times of India. "He was my KKR team-mate and I know what he can do on his day. Before this news came in I was quite certain that this will be a much closer series than the last one against South Africa was. Cricket is a funny game and this incident could end up galvanising the visiting team. Let us see."
Gambhir, however, also applauded the visitors for agreeing to play the T20I series opener despite severe air pollution in the national capital post Diwali. "I'd also like to congratulate Bangladesh for not making too much fuss about the pollution in the Capital," he said. "These are not ideal conditions to venture outdoors forget about playing competitive sport. So well done Tigers."
Shifting the focus back to Shakib's case, Gambhir alleged that the fact that most franchises in leagues other than the IPL aren't making money has led to the promotion of illegal activities.
"With BCCI not allowing current Indian cricketers to play in any league, except IPL, other such tournaments have almost nothing for an Indian fan. Except for maybe a couple of tournaments, the other such properties are not in good shape and so are their franchise owners."
"A franchise owner is a businessman who is looking for a return on his investment. Forget about the return, I can tell you with some confidence that even his investment is not secure," Gambhir asserted.
"So what does he do? Either he makes an exit feeling cheated. Or, as the grapevine says, he ends up bringing in an alleged 'bookie' into the ownership of his franchisee to raise some revenue albeit from corrupt practices. That is where we have incidents like the one we had with former Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan," he added.
Gambhir weigh in over India's selection for the series and thought finding a core group of players for the next year's T20 World Cup seems to be the priority.
"I am reading that India are keen on experimenting with new names," he wrote. "I think we have a decent pool of cricketers and besides experimenting we also need to identify the core of the team."
"The selectors and the team management should give security to the core besides defining their roles which will lead them into next year's T20 World Cup. For me a secured dressing room is a successful and happy dressing room," Gambhir concluded.
(Inputs from TOI)
