Eminent commentator and media personality from India, Harsha Bhogle has advised the Bangladeshi fans to refrain from making excuses and instead urge them to encourage their team to grow as cricketers after the ‘fake fielding’ row during India v Bangladesh T20 World Cup 2022 match.
After India defeated Bangladesh in Adelaide by 5 runs, the Tigers’ wicketkeeper-batter Nurul Hasan accused India's Virat Kohli of 'fake fielding'. Hasan, speaking to the media at the mixed zone after the conclusion of the match against India, cited the 'fake fielding' episode as one of the reasons behind his team's defeat.
This led to many Bangladeshi and Pakistani fans taking to social media to highlight the incident while suggesting that Bangladesh should've been awarded 5 runs because of Kohli's actions. This has also fired up a huge debate as well.
Following this, veteran cricket pundit, Harsha Bhogle, has given his opinion on the topic, suggesting that Bangladesh fans should not 'search for excuses' following their defeat.
Bhogle having seen the controversy intensifying, explained that for India to be penalized 5 runs, the umpires have to notice it, evaluate and then decide whether the bowling side has to be reprimanded.
He tweeted: "On the fake fielding incident, the truth is that nobody saw it. The umpires didn't, the batters didn't and we didn't either. Law 41.5 does make provision for penalising fake fielding (the umpire still has to interpret it thus) but no one saw it. So what do you do!
I don't think anyone can complain about the ground being wet. Shakib was right when he said it should favor the batting side. The umpires and curators have to keep the game going till it is not possible to do so. And they handled it very well so that minimum time was lost.”
Then Bhogle urged the Bangladeshi fans to not look for excuses like wet outfield or fake fielding and instead said that had the batters not panicked and stayed on until the end, Bangladesh could’ve won the match.
"So, for my friends in Bangladesh, please don't look at fake fielding or wet conditions as a reason for not reaching the target. If one of the batters had stayed till the end, Bangladesh could have won it. We are all guilty of it....when we search for excuses, we don't grow," Harsha said in a series of tweets.
Bangladesh was 66/0 in 7 overs chasing 185 to win when the rains came down. After around 30 mins of downpour, the target was revised to 151 runs in 16 overs, meaning that Bangladesh needed 85 more runs to win the match in 9 remaining overs.
Litton Das got run out after a brilliant 60-run knock, triggering a collapse in the batting order, but Nurul Hasan slammed 25* in 14 balls and took the game to the last over, but Bangladesh lost by 5 runs in the end.
