The 2025-26 season of the Bangladesh Premier League is off to a bumpy start with plenty of off-field incidents overshadowing the actual action. An unfortunate incident now gets added to the list of bumps as Dhaka Capitals' assistant coach Mahbub Ali Zaki died on the ground before the start of his team's tournament opener against Rajshahi Warriors in Sylhet on Saturday (December 27).
The incident happened just moments before the start of the match. Zaki, strangely, hadn't complained of any health issues prior to his death which was caused by a sudden collapse. Immediately, the assistant coach was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead by BCB chief physician Debashish Chowdhury.
A well-known figure in Bangladesh's cricketing circuit, plenty of cricketers from across different BPL teams rushed to the hospital on hearing the news of Zaki's death. Before his coaching era started, Zaki was a prominent name in domestic cricket and served Comilla with distinction.
In 2008, Zaki joined the BCB as a high-performance coach and since then, has been an active part of the coaching setup in some capacity or the other. Zaki's biggest moment came when he led Taskin Ahmed through a phase when the fast bowler was charged with an illegal bowling action during the 2016 T20 World Cup in India.
While Zaki's death was an untimely event, the BCB opted to go ahead with the BPL fixture. Capitals ended up registering a comfortable five-wicket win to begin their season on a high, although the dressing room would still be affected by the death.