File photo of the Bangladesh cricket team©AFP
Sri Lanka coach Chris Silverwood and his Bangladesh counterpart Chandika Hathurasingha on Friday expressed their displeasure over the unilateral decision to set a reserve day for the Super 4 match between India and Pakistan. Earlier in the day, the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) announced that the Indo-Pak match could resume on September 11 if the rain on September 10 was a bummer. However, the other games will not have a reserve day, although rain is forecast in the Sri Lankan capital via the Super 4s. Hathurasingha said he was not aware of the reason behind the sudden change in Asia Cup playing conditions.
“There is a technical committee (in the Asia Cup) represented by each participating country – six countries. They may have decided this for some other reason,” the Bangladesh coach said at the press conference ahead of the Super 4 match against Sri Lanka on Saturday.
Hathurasingha hinted that no steps have been taken to have a consensus talk on the matter and said his team would also have liked to have a spare day.
“It’s not ideal, and we would have liked an extra day,” he added.
Hathurasingha also hinted that the officials involved had not consulted other teams before reaching the decision.
“But I have no further comment on this because they have already made a decision and if they had consulted us earlier, we would have expressed our opinion,” said Hathurasingha.
Silverwood said he was surprised when he was informed of the decision to reserve an extra day for the Indo-Pak competition.
“Yeah! Look, I was obviously a bit surprised when I first heard about it. But we’re not hosting the competition, so there’s not much we can do about it, right?” asked Silverwood.The Lankan coach also said that the spare day could give India or Pakistan an unfair advantage if they could collect points on that particular day.
“Honestly, I don’t see it becoming a problem until it gets the teams points and hits us,” said Silverwood.
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