Nidahas Trophy 2018: Shakib Al Hasan revealed that he didn't call the batsmen back

Bangladesh brushed aside Sri Lanka by two wickets in a cliffhanger at the R.Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. Subsequently, the also booked a berth for their final showdown against India. However, despite the victory, the Bangladeshi players have been greeted with flak from the cricketing fraternity following their outrageous act during the dying stages of the nail-biter. Skipper Shakib Al Hasan seemed to be disgusted following which he signalled their batsmen to leave the field.

The incident panned out in the last over when Isuru Udana hurled a couple of bouncers. However, the umpires didn’t signal a no-ball which agitated the Bangladesh skipper and he entered into an animated discussion with the fourth umpire standing beyond the boundary. The game was halted for quite a while after which sanity prevailed. Nevertheless, in a recent interaction with the media, Shakib completely denied the allegations of forfeiting the game and expounded on the incident.

The revelation by Shakib

“I wasn’t calling them back. I was telling them to play. You can describe it both ways. It depends on how you see it. It is better to talk about the rest of the match, which to me is appropriate. What happened was that the square-leg umpire called a no-ball and after a discussion they canceled it. I didn’t think it was the right decision. I don’t know what happened after the first ball which was a bouncer but after the second ball, the umpire called a no-ball,” Shakib mentioned.

The Khulna cricketer also reminisced about Bangladesh’s defeat against India in the World T20 a couple of years ago. “Bangalore was a lesson on how to win. I think we are now alert of these situations. We have never been able to hit it cleanly in the last five overs. He (Mahmdullah) did it today. To do it in such a pressure game was just unbelievable,” he added.

Here’s the video of the day

Don’t miss any news in and around ‘cricket’, stay updated with CricTracker.com