During the second ODI, Litton Das recalled Ish Sodhi after Hasan Mahmud ran him out. Tamim Iqbal has now weighed in on the topic.
At Mirpur, Hasan Mahmud noticed Ish Sodhi leave the crease at the non-striker’s end early and ran him out, only for Bangladesh captain Litton Das to recall Sodhi. New Zealand won the match by 86 runs, and Sodhi – who also claimed six wickets – was named Player of the Match. The mode of dismissal, while legal, provokes controversy whenever it is used.
Tamim Iqbal, who opened batting in the ODI, defended Hasan after the match: “I don’t see anything wrong in it. The rule is there. If we get someone out, or one of us gets out in that manner, I don’t think we should react the way people are reacting nowadays.
Tamim also does not cater to the school of thoughts that believes in warning the non-striker before running them out: “There’s no need for a warning here. It is like a bowled out.
“Maybe the captain felt that we wouldn’t take that wicket, so he called him back. There’s no right and wrong – either you do it or you don’t do it. Nothing wrong with either … Going forward, I think you will see a lot of teams taking advantage of this.”
At the same time, Tamim assured that the team would get together and decide what to do in case of subsequent similar incidents. “I think it is a team decision. We will definitely talk about it after today’s incident. If it is a team decision that we will take wickets in this way, we will. If we don’t want to take it, we will not try it.
“I don’t think it looks good to bring back a batter after getting him out. Either we take it, or we don’t do it.”
Tamim used to be Bangladesh’s ODI captain until he announced a shock retirement in July, only to retract the decision a day later at the request of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
However, Shakib Al Hasan subsequently replaced him as captain. When Bangladesh rested Shakib for the New Zealand series, Das was put at the helm.
Sodhi, on the other hand, hailed Das’ act as “a nice gesture”. He added: “I would do the same thing as a bowler. I have played under some great captains for New Zealand in the past few years. I think they would have done the same thing.
“I think Litton Das was exceptional in the way he handled it. I hugged the bowler and gave Litton a bit of a handshake. We all respect the game of cricket very highly and really endeavour to keep the Spirit intact.
“I think I was out by such a small fraction, it caught me off guard. I come from a bit of an old cloth when you give the batter a warning. I understand it is not the rules at the moment.”
“I probably wouldn’t throw a Mankad out there. I understand that it is part of the rules of the game now. You’ve seen it all over the world. It is a bit of a controversial issue.
“They could have easily let me walk off. They showed huge sportsmanship out there today. We are fortunate to be on the winning side but it is important to keep the spirit of the game alive, especially when we are playing such competitive cricket to win games for our country.”