‘He told such blatant lies’: Salahuddin slams Asif Nazrul’s shifting stance

Bangladesh team’s senior assistant coach Mohammad Salahuddin vehemently criticised former sports adviser Asif Nazrul over his change of narrative relating to Bangladesh’s World Cup exclusion.

“He told such blatant lies,” Salahuddin told reporters on Thursday when asked to comment on Nazrul’s U-turn -- after initially stating the government decided against sending the team to the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup before later appearing to shift responsibility onto the board and players.

“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.

“He is a teacher, a teacher at Dhaka University. A person from the highest educational institution of my country saying such lies -- we can’t accept this. How can we accept this? He said one thing earlier and later took a U-turn,” he added.

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Salahuddin spoke of the difficulty players faced in coming to terms with the World Cup exclusion. He said some were so devastated that it was difficult to bring them back onto the field, and Nazrul’s U-turn did little to quell the anger within the cricketing community.

“Look, 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. Fine, if it’s a country’s decision taken for national reasons, they will sacrifice for the country. But if you talk about loss, I will talk only about personal loss.

“Personally, you completely finished a boy’s dream. I know that two of my players went into a kind of coma mentally for five days, completely lost. The fact that we were able to bring them back onto the field in this tournament is itself a big thing.”

Meanwhile, Bangladesh T20 vice-captain Saif Hassan also lamented missing the T20 World Cup, saying Bangladesh's exclusion was hard to digest. 

"It was not easy to come from a heartbreak of not playing the world cup [2026 T20 World Cup] as it was my first one. A dream of life with lot of hard work and sacrifices. I am sure Allah has planned something even better for all as he is the greatest. It was not easy to move on from there for me but thanks to everyone who supported me mentally in that tough period," Saif wrote on his official Facebook account on Friday.