'Shakib has assured us he won't repeat this mistake again'

Bangladesh have finally named their 17-man squad and a new captain for the upcoming Asia Cup. So many things happened in the last couple of days and finally what was supposed to happen, happened. Shakib Al Hasan has been appointed the captain till the T20 World Cup later this year. 

A couple of days ago, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) threatened to cut all ties with him if he didn't terminate his contract with BetWinner News, a surrogate promotion of online betting website BetWinner. The all-rounder, hours after the stern warning, informed the BCB of his decision to cancel the deal. 

Shakib was always the frontrunner to be the T20I captain after Mahmudullah was relieved of leadership and the deal with BetWinner news impeded the announcement. 

Now that Shakib no longer has any kind of involvement with the portal, the BCB has decided to entrust him with the captaincy role. 

"Shakib has realised his mistake," said the BCB's cricket operations chairman Jalal Yunus, regarding Shakib's involvement with BetWinner News. "He has acknowledged that it was wrong to be involved with such a website. Shakib is one of our most important players. In the last board meeting, we spoke about making him the captain. We've decided to stick to that."

Yunus mentioned that Shakib was 'misguided' and thought it to be an online news portal. "The board president was there. Shakib said that he took it to be an online news portal and endorsed it. He said he was misguided and terminated the contract after he realised the mistake."

A player has to get the approval of the board before signing any contract which Shakib didn't do. Yunus said that they would talk about that in the next board meeting and added that the all-rounder has assured them that he wouldn't make the same mistake again.

"Shakib is still our best player. He is one of our own. When he said that he wouldn't make such a mistake again, we ended the matter," he said.

"It's not the right thing to compromise if someone breaks the rule. But he has assured us that he won't repeat the mistake," Yunus concluded.