Captain of Australia in T20 World Cup Mitchell Marsh reacts to Afghanistan all-rounder Gulbadin Naib’s controversial act.
Taking the incident humorously with cricket.com.au, Marsh said, ‘I was almost in tears laughing and at the end of the day it had no bearing on the game. So, we can laugh about it now – but gee it was funny. It was outstanding.’
Overall, Marsh laughed off the incident, but however he admitted, it was tough to watch the team deal with consecutive losses, as it resulted in Australia’s exit from the game.
However, Marsh also appreciated Afghanistan and said, that the teams deserve to be in semifinals.
‘We were all flat (when the final wicket fell). We were desperate to continue on in the tournament. But fair play to Afghanistan – they beat us and they beat Bangladesh and they deserve to be in the semi-finals.’
During the ongoing Afghanistan-Bangladesh match, 33-year-old Gulbadin Naib held in hamstring and suddenly dropped on the ground.
This incident happened around the time, when 12th over of Bangladesh was ongoing and coincidentally, Naib got injured seconds before the rain.
For some time, he wasn’t moving in the field. In need of treatment, he was aided by his peer Naveen-ul-Haq. However, the rain briefly interrupted the proceedings.
But eventually the rain stopped, as a result, Bangladesh’s one over was reduced. Thus, revising the target to 114.
Then, Naib after being cured of hamstring came back on the field on 13th over. In the 15th over, Naib took the wicket of Tanzim Hasan. Thus, sealing the match in Afghanistan’s favour.
But it attracted a lot of controversy in social media. But a lot of memes were also made on the incident. Later in press conference Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan spoke about the incident and said,
‘Well, he had some cramps or something. I don’t know what happened to him and I don’t know what’s going on in social media. But that doesn’t matter; it’s just a field injury, and we haven’t lost any overs. The rain came, and we just went off. It’s not something that brought a massive difference in the game. We came back on the field after 5 minutes, and there was no massive difference. For me, it’s just like a small injury, and you just have to take some time.’
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