A few eyebrows were raised when Bangladesh decided not to field their ace pacer and vice-captain Taskin Ahmed in a must-win Super 8 contest against India in Antigua in the recently concluded T20 World Cup. The right-arm-quick opened up about his omission and admitted that he did miss the team bus on match day but he was at the stadium before the coin toss was done.
“I was a little late, but I reached at the ground before the toss. “I arrived at the ground around 30-40 minutes before the toss. I missed the team bus. The bus left the hotel at 8.35 am. I left for the ground at 8.43 am. I almost reached the ground with the bus,” said Taskin Ahmed to a Bangladesh publication Ajker Patrika as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.
In place of Taskin Bangladesh opted to play Jaker Ali adding further batting depth to the line-up but it did not bore fruits as Ali managed to score only one run in the chase of 197 coming lower down the order. However, Taskin would claim that his absence was not the reason behind the team changing the balance and going with an extra batting option. “It is not as if they didn’t pick me up because I arrived late. I wasn’t going to play anyway,” Taskin would say.
Former captain Shakib Al Hassan though would contradict what Taskin had to say. The all-rounder would say Taskin’s late arrival made it difficult to select him for the game. “He arrived 5-10 minutes before the toss, so naturally it was difficult for the team management to select him. It was also a difficult situation for the player,” Shakib told the reporters on Tuesday.
“Taskin apologized to the team, and everyone took it very normally. It was an unintentional mistake. It ended there,” Shakib further added.
BCB president Nazmul Hassan when asked about Taskin’s absence would say, “When I saw that Taskin wasn’t in the XI, I called (team manager) Rabeed (Imam), who told me that Taskin missed the team bus.”
“I will read the report from the concerned department,” Hassan further stated.
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