Sri Lanka celebrate with 'timed out' gesture to rub salt on Bangladesh's wounds after series win

Sri Lanka and Bangladesh collided in the decisive third T20I on Saturday, March 9, at the Sylhet International Cricket Stadium, in Sylhet. The island nation emerged victorious by 28 runs to win the three-match series 2-1.

Bangladesh won the toss and opted to bowl first on Saturday. Wicketkeeper-batter Kusal Mendis played an excellent knock of 86 runs off 55 balls, belting six fours and as many sixes. While the other Sri Lankan batters couldn't come to the party, a late blitzkrieg from Dasun Shanaka (19 off 9 balls) helped the tourists set a challenging target of 175 for the Bangla Tigers.

In the second innings, Nuwan Thushara broke the back of the Bangladeshi batting line-up. The right-arm pacer bagged a hat-trick in his very first over and went on to add two more wickets to his tally to finish with excellent figures of 5/20 in his four overs. Sri Lankan skipper Wanindu Hasaranga also chipped in with a couple of wickets as Rishad Hossain's entertaining half-century went in vain. The hosts were bowled out for 146 in the last over to lose the series.

Also Read: BAN vs SL 2024: Nuwan Thushara becomes fifth Sri Lankan bowler to take a hat-trick in T20Is

After receiving their winning trophy, the Sri Lankan players, including Mathews, posed for a team photo. They pointed to their wrists to mock their Bangladeshi counterparts. Last year, during the ODI World Cup in India, Bangladesh versus Sri Lanka clash turned out to be a heated affair after Angelo Mathews was adjudged 'timed out'. The veteran all-rounder noticed that his helmet strap was broken after he arrived at the crease to bat. Shakib Al Hasan, who was the opposition captain, appealed for a timed-out dismissal and the umpires had to send Mathews back to the hut.

Check out Sri Lanka's Timed-Out gesture post the match here:

This resulted in a huge controversy as a lot of former players opined that Shakib Al Hasan could have withdrawn their appeal to uphold the spirit of the game. However, Bangladesh's standpoint was that they did nothing outside the laws of cricket. Bangladesh's current all-format captain Najmul Hossain Shanto wasn't too pleased with Sri Lanka's celebration. He said that the Sri Lankan players haven't moved on from that World Cup incident.

"There is nothing to handle aggressively when it comes to this. I think they are yet to move on from the timed-out dismissal. They should move on and stay in the present since we didn’t do anything which outside the rules of cricket. I think they are making a fuss of it, but we are not worried about it," Shanto said after the match.

I think we have moved on from timed-out incident, I think it was a celebration which was misunderstood at that time: Nawaz

Ironically, Bangladeshi pacer Shoriful Islam had brought out the timed-out gesture after taking the wicket of Avishka Fernando in the first T20I. However, Sri Lanka assistant coach Naveed Nawaz had a different take on the incident. He stated that the Sri Lankan team has moved on from that timed-out incident and mentioned that the players are all very friendly off the field.

"I think we have moved on from that [timed-out incident]. I think it was a celebration which was misunderstood at that time. It was during the heat of the game. Both teams should forget about it," Nawaz said.

Also Read: Shoriful Islam's 'timed-out' celebration reignites old tensions between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

"I think both teams play really hard. The atmosphere is really nice. They all give their 100%. Sometimes emotions come into the middle. The players are all very friendly outside the boundary line. They fight really hard once they are inside the ground. I think that's what the game is all about. As long as you maintain discipline in the middle and play really hard, and then cross the boundary line and be good to each other, that's what both teams are expected to do," he added.