Mitchell Marsh React on Gulbadin Naib Fake Injury Incident | Source: X.com
Australia’s T20I captain, Mitchell Marsh, has spoken about the incident with Afghanistan’s Gulbadin Naib, who allegedly tried to buy time against Bangladesh by faking an injury.
Following instructions from head coach Jonathan Trott to slow the game amidst looming rain, Gulbadin Naib collapsed on the ground holding his hamstring.
As Naib clutched his hamstring at first slip, Bangladesh were two runs short of the DLS par score. By the time he received medical attention, the rain had grown heavier, and the match was interrupted.
Notably, if the match had ended then, Afghanistan would have won under DLS rules. However, play resumed shortly after a passing shower, and Afghanistan still managed to secure an 8-run victory.
With this victory, this secured a semifinal spot, knocking Australia out of the tournament. Meanwhile, Mitchell Marsh, Australia’s T20I captain, revealed that he burst into laughter after seeing Naib faking an injury.
“I was almost in tears laughing and at the end of the day it had no bearing on the game. So we can laugh about it now – but gee it was funny. It was outstanding,” Marsh told cricket.com.au.
“We watched it as a group. It was obviously a pretty amazing game wasn’t it? A lot of twists and turns. Obviously you want to keep playing this tournament and that was our only way of doing it. But there’s also the element that it was completely out of our control and we only had ourselves to blame for that.”
This marks the second consecutive occasion that Australia has missed out on reaching the T20 World Cup semifinals. Meanwhile, Afghanistan is set to take on South Africa in the tournament’s first semifinal on June 27.
