In an interview with CricBlog.NetIn the interview conducted shortly after the Bangladesh team returned to their hotel in Delhi, Donald said: “It was disappointing to see it. I can understand that Shakib took advantage of his opportunity. His words were: ‘He was trying his best to win.'” You can feel in my voice that I don’t like it…
“I don’t like that sort of thing. It was really difficult to watch it unfold – one of Sri Lanka’s all-time greats walking off the field without being given a ball for time. That’s my position on that.
“You talk about respect and dignity for each other and for the game, the spirit of the game. I just don’t want to see things like that. That’s who I am. I just don’t want to see that kind of There was something in our game where, well , someone was clever and said ‘well, you can appeal.’ I was like, ‘really, this isn’t going to happen, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening.'”
The problem for Mathews was that although he had come out to bat at the fall of Sadeera Samarawickrama’s wicket within the stipulated time, he was not ready to take the strike in time as he broke the strap of his helmet while pulling it. put in on in place. “The sensible thing would have been to just say, ‘Okay, don’t worry, buddy, fix your helmet quickly; you’ve got time to replace it,'” Donald said.
Donald said that when he saw the events unfold, he almost ran onto the field to ask Shakib to withdraw his appeal.
“My immediate reaction when that happened – and this is just [that] my instincts would have taken over – I almost thought about going into that field and saying: ‘enough is enough, we won’t tolerate this; We’re not that kind of team that stands up for this.” That was my immediate thought.
“Things happened very quickly, but you are talking about authority and I am not the head coach, I am not in charge. I just watched Marais Erasmus [the umpire at the bowler’s end] say, ‘please Angelo, you can now leave the ground.’ And, seeing Angelo lift his helmet off of him and then walk away and throw him against the billboards; “It was just… it surprised me.”
Donald: “There was no eye contact” after the game
The acrimony continued until the end of the game. The Sri Lankan team also did not shake hands with the Bangladesh team. Many of the Sri Lanka players shook hands with the non-out Bangladesh batsmen after the chase ended, but they did not go towards the stairs leading down from the Bangladesh dressing room to shake hands with the remaining Bangladesh players.
“Last night I sat in bed and thought, ‘What just happened there?’ For me, the question I asked was: ‘what just happened there?’ I even sat in the locker room and stayed silent,” Donald said. “We didn’t shake hands, and you walk down the field, and I knew what was coming after Sri Lanka had played… it was going to be a very, very empty reception and it certainly was.
“There was anger. The only word you can use, really, is anger. At the end of the day, like I normally do, I was almost at the park shaking my hand and I knew these guys were heading somewhere and that’s the locker room.” There was no eye contact, no conversations, nothing. I don’t know, a lot of these cricketers today may call me old-fashioned, but I just don’t think there’s any place for it. “I just don’t believe it.”
