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Bangladesh skipper Shakib Al Hasan backed his decision to stick with the call for Angelo Mathews's dismissal following their three-wicket victory over Sri Lanka in the ongoing World Cup on Monday.
One of the rarest moments in the history of cricket took place in the 25th over of the first innings. Mathews was adjudged 'timed out' after he failed to arrive at the crease within two minutes of Sadeera Samarawickrama's dismissal. Shakib made an appeal and the umpire decided to send Mathews back as it was within the laws of World Cup cricket. Mathews had a conversation with Shakib but in the end, he didn't call back his decision forcing the veteran all-rounder to depart. Shakib talked about the chain of events that unfolded during the unprecedented dismissal. "I felt like I was at war. Whatever I had to do, I did it. There will be debates. Today that (the time out) helped, I won't deny that. One of our fielders came to me and said, if you appeal, the law says he's out because he hasn't taken his guard within the time frame," Shakib said in the post-match press conference. "So, then I appealed to the umpires, umpire told me whether you're going to call him back or not, if I said he's out, then you call him back, it doesn't look good. I said I won't call him back. It was in the rules that a batsman has to come to the crease within that certain period of time and he wasn't there at that time," Shakib added. When Shakib was quizzed about his decision challenging the "spirit of cricket", the left-handed allrounder had a simple reply, "Well, then ICC should look into it and change the rules." Coming to the match, Bangladesh left it late to clinch a three-wicket victory at the Arun Jaitley Stadium. Shakib's 169-run stand with Najmul Hossain Shanto set the tone of the chase of 280 for The Tigers. They lost a couple of wickets as they came closer towards the target but Towhid Hridoy's presence ensured that Bangladesh walked away with two points. (ANI)
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