The Afghanistan all-rounder Gulbadin Naib has found himself at the centre of controversy following his side’s historic progress to a T20 World Cup semi-final after commentators accused him of faking – or at least exaggerating – an injury during the dramatic rain-affected match.
Gulbadin and his teammates needed to overcome Bangladesh in St Vincent to secure their spot and a final-four clash with South Africa at Australia’s expense – but their narrow eight-run victory, via the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method, has come under scrutiny following the incident when Gulbadin indicated he had cramp.
Bangladesh had just fallen behind on DLS at 81 for seven in the 12th over, chasing Afghanistan’s total of 115, when Naib’s coach and former England player Jonathan Trott, gestured from the boundary appearing to inform his players to slow the game down. Rain had started to fall and the hope was that the umpires would take the players off.
Television images showed Gulbadin, fielding at first slip, immediately fall over clutching his hamstring, claiming he could not carry on and needed attention. The veteran player was subsequently helped off the field of play by his teammate Naveen-ul-Haq and a member of Afghanistan’s support staff as it began to drizzle and the pitch was covered with his captain, Rashid Khan, appearing unhappy with his player’s behaviour.
“Oh no no no, sorry. You can’t have this,” said the former New Zealand bowler Simon Doull, who was commentating on the game. “I’m not accepting that. Even Rashid [Khan] doesn’t like it. It’s just delay tactics. I get it but I don’t like that at all. It is unacceptable.
“They might have gone off anyway for the rain but that’s not a good look. I know the Euros are going on in football, you’d be better off there.”
When the players returned having lost one over, and Bangladesh’s target now standing at 114, Rashid bowled his final over before turning to a recovered Gulbadin. With only his second ball he picked up the eighth wicket, of Tanzim Hasan Sakib, before Naveen-ul-Haq took the final two wickets to secure victory.
Rashid played down the incident when asked about it by Doull after the game. “Rain is something that’s not in your hand. It was on and off. Mentally we were always there that we had to play 20 overs and take ten wickets. That was the only way we could get to the semi-final. There was no other way,” he said. “Gulbadin had some cramp, I think. Hopefully, he will be all right. But that wicket that he gave us was a massive one at that stage.”
Rashid also claimed the delay did not impact the game much. “Well, he [Naib] had some cramp, I don’t know what happened to him and I don’t know what’s going on in social media but that doesn’t matter – it’s just the on-field injury which comes and then we haven’t lost any overs, the rain came and we just went off, it’s not something like brought a massive difference in the game. We came back on field after five minutes and there was no massive difference. For me, it’s just like a small injury comes in, then you have to take some time.”
