Match referee Chris Broad spoke to the caterers after the Nidahas Trophy game between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in Colombo to find the person responsible for the dressing room incident, and reports suggest that Shakib Al Hasan forcefully pushed the door causing the damage.
The recently-concluded Nidahas Trophy produced a lot of brilliant cricketing moments including a fighting performance from the Bangladesh team en route to the final and a last-ball six by Dinesh Karthik to clinch the title for the Indian cricket team. However, one of the biggest talking points from the tri-nation T20 series had nothing to do with the gentleman’s game.
The incident took place during the last group-stage tie between the hosts and Bangladesh when Mustafizur Rahman was run out. With the first two balls being bouncers, Bangladesh felt that the second ball should have been a no-ball but the umpires did not signal it. When some Bangladeshi substitute players engaged in a verbal duel with Sri Lanka’s Kusal Mendis, Shakib Al Hasan, the Bangladesh skipper standing near the boundary, angrily told his players to come off the field.
Bangladesh went on to clinch the game with Mahmudullah sealing Sri Lanka’s fate with a match-winning six off the penultimate delivery. However, the controversy was far from over as photos emerged of broken glass panels in Bangladesh cricket team’s pavilion.
According to Sri Lankan newspaper The Island, match referee Chris Broad spoke to the caterers after the game to find the person responsible for the dressing room incident. The CCTV footage was rather inconclusive but reports suggest that the working staff said that Bangladesh skipper Shakib Al Hasan forcefully pushed the door causing the damage.
Shakib was later fined 25 per cent of his match fee and was also awarded one demerit point by the International Cricket Council (ICC). Bangladesh reserve Nurul Hasan, who was part of the on field altercation, pleaded guilty to unruly behaviour and was also fined 25 per cent of his match fee and awarded one demerit point.
Broad in his ruling said, “I understand that it was… tense and an edge-of-the-seat match with (a) place in the final on the line, but the actions of the two players were unacceptable and cannot be condoned as they clearly went overboard. Had the fourth umpire not stopped Shakib and the fielders remonstrating, and then the on-field umpires not intervened between Nurul and Thisara, things could have become worse.”