Garg slams ‘dirty’ Bangladesh celebration
POTCHEFSTROOM:INDIA captain Priyam Garg has called the aggressive celebration of Bangladesh players “dirty” following their maiden title triumph at the Under-19 World Cup here.
Some of the Bangladeshi players got carried away with their celebration after their historic win on Sunday. While their captain Akbar Ali apologised for the “unfortunate incident”, Garg felt it should not have happened. “We were easy. We think it’s part and parcel of the game - you win some and you lose some. But their reaction was dirty. I think it shouldn’t have happened. But it’s okay,” Garg was quoted as saying by Espncricinfo.
Bangladesh players were overtly aggressive while fielding, with their lead pacer Shoriful Islam sledging India’s batsmen after almost every delivery. In fact as Bangladesh approached the winning runs, Shoriful was seen swearing multiple times on camera. However, his skipper Ali showed maturity to apologise on behalf of the players.
“What happened, it should not (have) happened. I don’t know what exactly happened. I didn’t ask what was going on. But, you know, in the final, emotion can come out, and sometimes the boys were getting pumped, and emotions were coming through. As a youngster, it shouldn’t happen. In any position, in any manner, we have to show the respect to the opponent, we should have respect for the game. Cricket is known for being a gentleman’s game. So I’ll say, I’ll be sorry for my team,” said Ali, who scored an unbeaten match-winning 43.
Over the past two years, both teams were involved in close games with India getting the better of them on two important occasions—the Asia Cup final and tri-series final last year.
“I’ll say India-bangladesh rivalry bring the part, and before the World Cup final, we lost the Asia Cup final to them a couple of months ago. So I think the boys are really pumped up and take a revenge. I won’t say it should have happened, but I will be sorry for my side,” said Ali. A source close to the Indian team management said emotion ran high during and after the game.
According to India’s manager Anil Patel, the ICC has taken a serious view of the aggressive celebration and will be reviewing the footage of the final game’s “last few minutes” here. “We don’t know what actually happened,” Patel said on Sunday.
“Everybody was in a shock, absolutely, but we don’t know what happened exactly. The ICC officials are going to watch the footage of the last few minutes and they are going to let us know,” he said.
The two teams nearly came to blows before the situation was defused by the coaching staff and on-field officials. Patel claimed that match referee Graeme Labrooy met him and expressed regret at what transpired on the field.
“The referee came to me. He was sorry about the incident. He clarified the ICC is going to take very seriously what has happened during the match and the last session. They are going to witness the footage and they will tell us in the morning (Monday).”
U-19 World Cup team of the tournament: Yashasvi Jaiswal (Ind), Ibrahim Zadran (Afg), Ravindu Rasantha (SL), Mahmudul Hasan Joy (Ban), Shahadat Hossain (Ban), Nyeem Young (WI), Akbar Ali (Ban, WK, captain), Shafiqullah Ghafari (Afg), Ravi Bishnoi (Ind), Kartik Tyagi (Ind), Jayden Seales (WI). 12th man: Akil Kumar (Can).