‘I was at war’: Shakib clears the air on Mathews’ controversial dismissal | Cricket

Bangladesh skipper Shakib Al Hasan said he felt like he “was at war” when he decided to approach the umpire demanding Sri Lankan all-rounder Angelo Mathews be ‘timed out’ for not being ready to face the ball within two minutes of the fall of a wicket in a World Cup match here on Monday.

The incident happened in the 25th over when Mathews walked out to bat after the dismissal of Sadeera Samarawickrama but found that his helmet strap was broken and immediately signalled for a replacement instead of facing the bowler, Shakib.

This prompted Bangladesh to appeal for a ‘time out’. Mathews was seen having an animated discussion with umpire Marais Erasmus and Richard Illingworth, explaining that he had some issue with the helmet strap. He also approached Shakib, who didn’t withdraw his appeal and the Sri Lankan cricketer was forced to leave the field.

“I felt like I was at war. Whatever I had to do, I did it. There will be debates. Today that (the time out) helped, I won’t deny that!” said Shakib after the match.

“One of our fielders came to me and said that if I appealed, he (Mathews) would be out. The umpire asked me if I was serious. It’s in the laws; I don’t know if it’s right or wrong,” added Shakib.

Sri Lanka skipper Kusal Mendis said the umpires should have taken a “good decision” on the issue.

“When Mathews came to the crease, there were five seconds left. When he came out, he found out about the strap of the helmet. It was disappointing. We expected him to score runs for us; it’s disappointing that the umpires couldn’t step in and make good decisions,” said the Sri Lankan skipper.

Charith Asalanka smashed a 105-ball 108 but it was not enough on Monday as his brilliance was overshadowed by the 169-run partnership between Shakib and Najmul Hossain Shanto, which helped Bangladesh chase down the 280-run target for the loss of seven wickets in 41.1 overs.

Mendis said another 30-40 runs could have made the difference for his team.

“Charith played a brilliant innings, but we were 30-40 runs short; 320 would have been good enough on this wicket. I’m happy that Pathum (Nissanka), Sadeera (Samarawickrama) and Dilshan are coming through,” he said.

“I think in the future we’ll have a very good team which shows promise. We had a couple of injuries, and that was the reason we had so many changes and newcomers,” he added.