Dr. Asif Nazrul: How Many Faces Do You Have?

Opinion

“ The Politics of Duplicity : Asif Nazrul and the Story of Two World Cups ”

The Cricket World Cup and the Football World Cup are two different topics. But when two different topics, two different events bring out the ugly, lying face behind a person’s mask, it’s something to watch.

When Bangladesh boycotted the T20 World Cup in India, it was a rare event in cricket history—a country withdrew from a global tournament without any war, no crimes against humanity, no international sanctions. The then sports advisor, Asif Nazrul, initially claimed that it was the government’s decision—due to security risks. Later, he changed his mind and said that it was actually the BCB and the cricketers’ decision, not the government’s. The shame and disgrace that could not be avoided despite all these mistakes is that Bangladesh boycotted a cricket tournament on the world stage.

In contrast, it now appears that the same Asif Nazrul is supporting Iran by accepting its participation in the World Cup in the United States with a message of Muslim solidarity—an Iran that has just gone through a military conflict with the United States, and has suffered real discrimination such as not being able to obtain visas for a long time before the World Cup. Yet Iran has not boycotted the tournament; rather, it has found a way to participate by holding preparation camps in Turkey and Mexico.

This is where the question arises—when a country decides to remain on the world stage despite real odds, and in our case, a generation of cricketers are deprived of the World Cup due to mere political or diplomatic discomfort—then this inconsistency of leadership does not escape the eyes of the common people. On the one hand, one supports a country based on geopolitical sympathies, while on the other hand, one deprives one’s own players of the same opportunity, just to increase acceptance and popularity among one’s own followers by fanning the flames of “anti-India” and “anti-India”.

Mr. Asif Nazrul, do you know what this mutually contradictory position of yours suggests? The idea is that “Dr. Asif Nazrul is both in religion and in giraffes”.

Have you ever asked yourself why Iran did not boycott the World Cup held in the United States despite having even greater reasons for boycotting the World Cup held in India, inciting the hatred and anger of a handful of haters? Or why did you yourself not call for a World Cup boycott for Iran, representing the Muslim Ummah? According to your mentality and logic, boycotting Iran’s World Cup was logical, right?

You didn’t want to do this, because if you want to establish the narrative that you are ‘struggling’ to establish among your followers, even “stop Indian aggression” is fine. If you want to raise the voice of “stop US aggression”, then there will be no jobs or visas, even if no one else knows it, opportunistic people like you know it.

So anyway, may your Muslim identity remain awake, may Iran shine brightly in the World Cup, I wish you Hazrat…

– Shariful Hasan