Captain Mashrafe Mortaza’s woes after Bangladesh’s exit from the World Cup were compounded by a suspension and fine for his team’s slow over-rate in the losing quarter-final against India.
Mortaza was banned for one limited overs international and fined 40 per cent of his match fee, while his players were fined 20 per cent of their fees for maintaining a slow over-rate against India at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.Match referee Roshan Mahanama imposed the suspension on Mortaza after Bangladesh were ruled to be two overs short of their target at the end of the match when time allowances were taken into consideration.
As Mortaza had also been found guilty of a minor over-rate offence during the victory against England, this offence constituted his second minor over-rate offence for the purposes of the ICC Code of Conduct.
Mortaza pleaded guilty to the offence and accepted the proposed sanction.
The skipper lamented that his side, playing in their first World Cup quarter-final, could have scored 270-280 runs instead of 193 against India, but were unable to make any partnerships and lost wickets at regular intervals.
“It was brilliant tournament for us. Obviously, the way we played today, it wasn’t great, but most of the players in our side haven’t any cricket in Australia, so it was a really big ask for us,” he said.
“I feel very proud as the captain of this team, and hopefully our boys will take it in the next series.
“We always knew that India come hard after the 35th over. They have been brilliant after 35,” he said.
“They take the calculated risk, and they’ve had success. Once again, we couldn’t bowl with our plans.” – AFP
