Hassan's first tenure: Small victories abroad, but problems at home

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) election on October 31 for the directors' positions is a foregone conclusion. With no opposition, the board president Nazmul Hassan's panel is set to retain the majority of the posts.

Directors voted into the board have to elect a president and, unless there is late drama, Hassan is expected to continue in his role as BCB president, and it is unlikely his position will be challenged for the next four years.

Regardless of an extension, Hassan's first term as BCB president should be assessed on the day it ends. One parameter to gauge the success of the BCB president is the performance of the Bangladesh team. In Hassan's case, the other significant aspects of his tenure include his handling of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) and his leadership at home and abroad.

Hassan's tenure coincided with Bangladesh's longest period of success as an international team and his major contribution was to back some critical decisions. He agreed to appoint Chandika Hathurusingha as coach despite more luminous names in the shortlist in 2014. When Shakib Al Hasan took on Hathurusingha soon after his appointment, Hassan decided to suspend Shakib for six months, a risky but bold move. In the short term, Bangladesh lost badly in West Indies but it became clear that the board was serious about team discipline.

Hassan then approved splitting the Bangladesh captaincy for the first time. This was a practical solution at the time but proved to be a masterstroke as Mashrafe Mortaza led an ODI revival.

Within a year of this success, however, Hassan enlarged the selection committee by including Hathurusingha and two other directors. Faruque Ahmed resigned as the chief selector, citing a lack of independence, but Hassan pressed ahead and ratified the changes.

When making these changes, Hassan said it was a relief for him to no longer discuss selection issues with the selectors. In the following 12 months, however, he suggested many names to the selectors through press briefings and on many occasions, those players were subsequently chosen.

Mominul Haque's axing, and then reinstatement, for the first Test against Australia caused a major outcry, and there were hints that chief selector Minhajul Abedin had little to do with such decisions.

Hassan's proximity to the senior team also raised eyebrows on several occasions, particularly as he proceeded to make public contents of team meetings. From talking about players' inability to raise issues with the coach, to revealing their World Cup plan and discussing the mentality of the Test captain, Hassan gave the media a rare look into the not-so-perfect world of an international cricket team. However, this also made some players appear weak.

At the start of Hassan's presidency, the BCB had to deal with the prickly issues of payment and match-fixing allegations in the 2013 edition of the BPL. He responded by forming a tribunal to deal with the allegations. There were flaws in the investigations but the ban handed to Mohammad Ashraful set an important precedent. Hassan also made sure the tournament would not continue until the investigating tribunal had made its decisions and much of the pending player payments were cleared. The tournament was not played in 2014 and returned in 2015.

Another affliction of the BPL also affected Hassan: conflict of interest. His employers, Beximco, bought the Dhaka Dynamites franchise. The man Hassan appointed as BPL secretary, Ismail Haider Mallick, also works at Beximco, while franchise coach Khaled Mahmud is a BCB director. As the most powerful trio in the BCB, Hassan, Mahmud and Mallick were part of a growing number of conflicts of interest across all levels of Bangladesh cricket, especially evident since BPL 2015.

There were further problems for Hassan on the domestic front. There have been murmurs for the last four years that two factions in the BCB have been trying to allegedly manipulate the different levels of the Dhaka league system. Abahani is recognized traditionally as the most powerful club in Bangladesh sport - it's the club from which Hassan held his BCB councillorship and where Mallick is the cricket secretary, and Mahmud the coach. In 2016, Abahani were on the right side of the umpire's poor decisions in the Dhaka Premier League match against Prime Doleshwar Sporting Club, which prompted allegations of bias towards a powerful, well-connected club.

While Hassan acknowledged the umpiring problem, he took the allegations against Abahani to heart and held angry press conferences. On one occasion, he didn't allow three journalists to enter a press briefing at his Beximco office as they had questioned him about Abahani at a previous press conference. The umpiring issues, however, continued.

The situation came to a head earlier this year when a bowler, Sujon Mahmud of Lalmatia Club, frustrated by alleged biased umpiring, gave away 92 runs off just four deliveries in a Dhaka league match. The day before, Tasnim Hasan of the Fear Fighters Sporting Club voluntarily conceded 69 runs in 1.1 overs. Both players were banned for ten years, and their clubs were also punished, but the umpire in question got away with a slap on the wrist.

Hassan did have a better time at the ICC, where he secured important committee posts and could successfully position the BCB first with the Big Three and later with Shashank Manohar, when the latter brought in reforms. Siding with the Big Three gave the side more matches against India. Agreeing with Manohar's moves made sure the ICC chairman also heard out Hassan's views on not demoting teams from Full Membership status.

In some ways though, the BCB's leadership was a continuation of the previous man in power: AHM Mustafa Kamal. Hassan's leadership method was similar to Kamal's hands-on style as board president, though Hassan also listened to what the players had to say, most evident in the slight increase in player salary in 2017.

There are two key differences between Kamal and Hassan, however: while the former did not trust his captains and gave them assurances on a series-by-series basis, Hassan's confidence in Mashrafe went a long way in stabilising the senior team.

Secondly, unlike Kamal, who was regularly challenged by a faction of board directors, Hassan's regime has been known to have a "with us or against us" policy. Some directors were close to him and those who chose to toe his line were welcomed. Disagreement wasn't welcome, however; a case in point being Ahmed Sajjadul Alam, who questioned Hassan's stance on the Big Three position paper in 2014 and has become a pariah within the board.

A more democratic approach may not have resulted in so many questions around Hassan's first tenure. The next four years will see many changes in world cricket, so he will have to continue being proactive and methodical, to shape Bangladesh cricket in such a way that everyone feels included, and the world keeps seeing the progress of the cricket team.