Bangladesh opener Shamsur Rahman unexpectedly took a swipe at the umpire for what he said was a bad decision against Nasir Hossain at a crucial stage of the third day’s play in the second Test against Sri Lanka on Thursday. Nasir helped the Tigers avoid the follow-on successfully with a fluent 42 before he was given caught behind by Australian umpire Paul Reiffel when the batsman attempted a cut shot off Ajantha Mendis.
Bangladesh immediately lost another wicket as the next batsman Sohag Gazi suffered a first-ball duck, giving Mendis a chance to claim a hat-trick.
Reiffel ignored a loud appeal from all the Sri Lankan fielders against Al-Amin Hossain to deny Mendis of the feat, but the damage had already been done as Bangladesh is targeting a draw at the very least.
‘We tried to play our best game and were largely successful as we got a big partnership,’ Shamsur told the media at the post-day press conference referring to the 232-run second-wicket stand.
‘But at the end of the day one bad decision went against us. It was the dismissal of Nasir. If he was not out then we would have been in a much better position now.
‘You all saw in the television what had happened. I think the ball did not touch his bat. He tried to play a cut shot, but the ball missed the bat. We saw it in the replays. It was an absolutely poor decision.
‘In the three innings he has played in this series, he was wrongly given out twice. It went against us,’ said Shamsur, pointing to Nasir’s dismissal in the first innings of the first Test in Dhaka.
‘Nasir is our key player in that position and he has always performed well. He is a good performer in all three formats – Test, one-day and Twenty20,’ said Shamsur, who scored 106 and shared a record 232-run partnership for the second wicket with Imrul Kayes.
‘If such a performer gets bad decisions repeatedly then the whole team suffers. If Nasir was not out I would say this day
would have belonged to us in all manners possible,’ he said.
-With New Age input
