The 2023 World Cup game between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka was embroiled in controversy when Mathews became the first cricketer in international cricket to be timed out after he failed to face his first delivery within the two-minute cut-off after the fall of Sadeera Samarawickrama in the 25th over.

According to the latest ICC Playing Conditions, “After the fall of a wicket or the retirement of a batter, the incoming batter must, unless Time has been called, be ready to receive the ball or for the other batter to be ready to receive the next ball within 2 minutes of the dismissal or retirement. If this requirement is not met, the incoming batter will be out, Timed out.”

Mathews walked out at 3.50 pm IST, a minute after Samarawickrama’s dismissal, and had one more minute to get ready to face the ball. He was almost ready to face up, but as he tightened his chin strap, his helmet broke. Mathews then removed his helmet and called for a replacement, which prompted Shakib to appeal to the umpires for a ‘timed out’ dismissal. According to Bishop, the on-field umpires for the game Marais Erasmus and Richard Illingworth, asked Shakib if he wanted to take back the appeal twice, but the Bangladesh skipper did not.

Shakib was later seen gesturing to Mathews that the decision of his dismissal had been made by the umpires and the team had accepted the final ruling.

It was later confirmed that Mathews had used up his two-minute time limit even before his helmet strap broke. However, Bangladesh did not appeal immediately after the two-minute time had lapsed, at 3.51 pm IST, but were prompted to by the broken helmet strap. It was at 3.54pm IST that Mathews was finally given out.