Sabbir Rahman faces six-month ban from international cricket

The BCB's disciplinary committee has recommended that Sabbir Rahman be suspended for six months from international cricket for abusing a fan on social media. The recommendation needs to be approved by BCB chief Nazmul Hassan's approval, but that is understood to be a formality.

Sabbir, who had already been dropped from Bangladesh's squad for the Asia Cup later this month, will be out till the end of February. He will be unavailable for Bangladesh's home series against Zimbabwe and West Indies, as well as part of their New Zealand tour.

Sabbir had just finished serving a ban for physically assaulting a fan during a first-class match last December. He was fined Tk 20 lakh ($25,000 approx), stripped of his central contract, and banned from domestic cricket for six months for that offence. When the new punishment is enforced, it will mean that Sabbir can only play domestic cricket till his international ban is lifted.

"We have recommended to the board president that Sabbir Rahman should be suspended from international cricket for six months," BCB director Ismail Haider Mallick said. "He repented that he would never do such a thing again. He also admitted to a lot of things.

"This is by no means a lesser punishment. Every player has a dream to represent the country. He was banned from domestic cricket because of his previous offence. We called him this time for a recent incident on Facebook. He said that his account was hacked but we took into account other incidents, some of which he has admitted to be true."

Mallick warned that Sabbir would face harsher punishments if he didn't rein himself in. This is the third time since 2016 that the BCB has punished him.

"If there's a repeat of such incidents, he will be serving longer suspensions. He had a loss of nearly 1.5 crore in the previous punishment. Some people get their act straight, some don't. The board president has made it clear that we will be strict on discipline."

Mallick also said that Mosaddek Hossain, who was sued by his divorced wife recently, had been issued with a warning by the disciplinary committee, though any action against him was deferred until the court's judgement.