After a brutal dig at Australian cricketer Adam Zampa, who called Gulbadin Naib’s controversial act in the T20 World Cup During the ‘old rain thread’ Super Eight match between Afghanistan and Bangladesh on Tuesday, Australian skipper Mitchell Marsh had his say on the incident after the 2021 champions were eliminated from the tournament.
The equation for Australiawho lost to Afghanistan and India, Bangladesh were expected to beat Rashid Khan’s men, albeit by a small margin, to progress to the semi-finals. And it almost seemed possible with Litton Das single-handedly leading the charge with his valiant knock of a half-century in a rain-affected swing game at Kingstown. However, Afghanistan ultimately held on to win by eight runs in the DLS, knock out Australia and advance to the semi-finals for the first time in ICC tournaments.
During the match, as Kingstown witnessed a light drizzle for the first time, Afghanistan coach Jonathan Trott was caught signaling the players to slow down play, given the team had three points ahead of the DLS score in the 12th round of the second round. At that point, Gulbadin, standing in the slide, fell dramatically to the ground, clutching his hamstring, causing a delay of a few minutes before the blankets were put on.
While Gulbadin sparked hilarious memes moments after the incident, it drew immense criticism when he entered the field after play resumed, picked up a wicket and joined in the wild celebrations of the Afghanistan. Although he was criticized, even by veteran cricketers, Marsh saw the funny side of Gulbadin’s act.
“I was almost in tears laughing, and in the end it had no bearing on the game,” Marsh said. “So we can laugh about it now – but hey, it was funny. It was exceptional.”
The Australian all-rounder, however, admitted that it was difficult to see the team suffer back-to-back Super Eight defeats that led to Australia’s elimination from the semi-final race.
“We watched it as a group. It was obviously a pretty amazing match, wasn’t it? Lots of twists and turns,” he said.
“Obviously you want to keep playing this tournament and this was our only way to do it. But there’s also the fact that this was completely out of our control and we only had ourselves to blame for this .
“We were all flat (when the final wicket fell). We were desperate to continue in the tournament. But fair play to Afghanistan – they beat us and they beat Bangladesh and they deserve to be in semi final.”