After Pakistan, now Bangladesh raises serious concerns over controversial Indian move at Asia Cup
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*DUBAI* - After Pakistani skipper, now Bangladesh Captain has also raised concerns over controversial Indian move in the Asia Cup.
Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza is angered at the move. His grouses were two-fold: that Bangladesh, if they topped their group following Thursday’s match, would not have the advantage of playing the second-placed team from the other group in their opening Super Four match on Friday; and that their two matches on consecutive days would be in two different cities, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Until Wednesday, oddly, only India had been designated a label – A1 – in the tournament handbook. No other team, in the handbook at least, had labels assigned to them. All the handbook specified was that A1 and B1 would play B2 and A2 respectively on the opening day of the Super Fours.
It was assumed accordingly that teams from Group B would slot in as B1 or B2 based on where they finished in the first round of matches. However, on Wednesday it was learnt that this is not the case. Instead, it was learnt, Bangladesh were labelled B2 ahead of the tournament and would remain B2 irrespective of where they finished on the Group B table. This meant Bangladesh would play India on Friday, with Pakistan squaring off against Afghanistan.
All this confusion, it is understood, stems from the BCCI having “erred while documenting the official tournament handbook”. The Indian board, which is the official host of this edition of the Asia Cup, admitted to an error of omission in not mentioning that Bangladesh were B2 and so on. Consent was apparently sought from the chief executives of all the six participating boards before finalising the schedule.
