Senior assistant coach Mohammad Salahuddin ripped into former adviser Dr. Asif Nazrul on Thursday, accusing the Dhaka University professor of peddling “such blatant lies” through a stunning reversal on the government’s boycott of the 2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in India.
“He told such blatant lies,” Salahuddin said, in a furious public condemnation that has ignited outrage across Bangladesh’s cricket circles.
His tone was laced with contempt. “I myself am a teacher; teachers generally lie a bit less. That he would say such lies so openly—I honestly can’t even imagine it. How will I even show my face in front of the boys? He took such a U-turn.”
The tirade followed Nazrul’s dramatic flip-flop. On January 22, he had bluntly stated the exclusion was a non-negotiable government call, citing “genuine security concerns” in India, which left players shell-shocked and sidelined without real input. Reports described some athletes plunging into profound distress, with at least two entering a “coma-like” mental state for days as their lifelong World Cup ambitions were obliterated overnight.
Then, on February 10—mere days before leaving office—Nazrul shamelessly rewrote the narrative. In a press conference, he insisted the boycott stemmed from the “voluntary sacrifice” of the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) and players themselves, a heroic gesture to safeguard “national dignity” and cricket’s security. “There is no question of regret,” he proclaimed, cynically shifting blame onto the very individuals he had earlier overruled.
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The backlash was swift and scathing. Anonymous players dismissed the claims as “funny” and expressed utter helplessness, insisting they had no role in the decision. BCB directors corroborated that the boycott arose from top-tier cabinet-level deliberations focused on security threats in India, not any initiative from the board or squad. “He himself had declared previously that the team would not go,” one director remarked anonymously. “How can he now shift responsibility?”
Salahuddin, visibly anguished, highlighted the devastating toll: “When a boy goes to play a World Cup, he brings his dream, his 27-year-old dream, here. You destroy that dream in one second… Personally, you completely finished a boy’s dream.” He detailed the severe psychological impact on several players and the Herculean task of motivating them back onto the field.
A furious social media storm prompted Nazrul’s belated late-night “clarification,” where he conceded he had “failed to convey the situation clearly” but doubled down on the government’s primacy in the decision. The apology rang hollow, cementing perceptions of treachery: evading blame, scapegoating victims, and eroding trust in those meant to champion the sport.
This fiasco compounds Nazrul’s troubling legacy of deceit, power misuse, and brazen anti-India agitation. Adding fuel to the fire, he publicly thanked Pakistan for its reciprocal boycott of a key match against India—framed as “solidarity” with Bangladesh’s exclusion. On February 5, Nazrul posted on Facebook: “Thank you, Pakistan,” quoting Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s declaration that Islamabad would skip the February 15 game against India to protest Bangladesh’s removal from the tournament. Sharif had described the move as “very appropriate” and emphasised standing “completely” by Bangladesh after “careful consideration.”
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Such overt gratitude—celebrating a cross-border alignment explicitly targeting India—stinks of inflammatory geopolitics masquerading as sports solidarity. It has deepened suspicions of a brewing cricket nexus against India, all while Nazrul dodges domestic fallout from his own policy blunders.
Nazrul’s record now reads like a catalogue of betrayal: a lecturer who preaches integrity yet spins falsehoods; an adviser who wields authority to impose edicts then abandons the fallout to others; a figure whose anti-India venom prioritises regional grudges over national sporting progress. Bangladesh’s players, already robbed of their dreams, and the broader public deserve accountability—not excuses from a duplicitous opportunist unfit for any role of influence.
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