Sydney // The ICC chief executive David Richardson yesterday criticised his organisation’s Bangladeshi president for questioning the integrity of umpires, saying allegations of fixing were “unfortunate” and “baseless”.
Mustafa Kamal said decisions made by officials during Bangladesh's 109-run loss to India in their World Cup quarter-final in Melbourne on Thursday seemed to have been "pre-arranged".
Kamal was angry that India’s Rohit Sharma, who top-scored with 137, had not been given out when he was on 90.
Rohit had been caught at deep mid-wicket off the bowling of Rubel Hossain, but umpires Aleem Dar and Ian Gould signalled a no-ball for what appeared to be a legitimate waist-high delivery.
But Richardson defended Dar and Gould from accusations of biased officiating.
“The ICC has noted Mr Mustafa Kamal’s comments, which are very unfortunate but made in his personal capacity. As an ICC president, he should have been more considerate in his criticism of ICC match officials, whose integrity cannot be questioned,” Richardson said.
“The no-ball decision was a 50-50 call. The spirit of the game dictates the umpire’s decision is final and must be respected.
“Any suggestion that the match officials had ‘an agenda’ or did anything other than perform to the best of their ability are baseless and are refuted in the strongest possible terms.”
Kamal said he was considering quitting his post in protest.
“As the ICC president, whatever I have to say I will say it in next meeting. It could happen that maybe I will resign,” Kamal said in comments aired on Bangladeshi television.
“There was no quality in the umpiring. It looked like they took the field after it [the outcome] was pre-arranged.”
Bangladeshi fans were also furious at the dismissal of star batsman Mohammad Mahmudullah, who was caught close to the boundary rope by Shikhar Dhawan.
The fielder seemed to have touched the boundary rope in doing so, but the third umpire gave the all-clear sign to it.
The match was the biggest in the history of the cricket-mad nation, marking the first time that Bangladesh had made the World Cup quarter-finals.
Kamal, whose position has been largely ceremonial since India’s Narayanaswami Srinivasan became the governing body’s chairman last year, said that the ICC’s acronym seemed to stand for the “Indian Cricket Council”.
“I cannot represent the Indian Cricket Council. If someone has imposed a result on us, in that case no one can accept it,” said Kamal, who is a minister in the Bangladeshi government.
Meanwhile, the Indian cricket board said Kamal should have made his feelings known to his fellow administrators before airing them in public.
“I wish he could have taken all these issues on the ICC platform during the ICC meetings,” said Anurag Thakur, the Indian board secretary.
“The reality is we’ve won against Bangladesh and India has won all the previous matches in the league stage. I think it’s time to move ahead ... we can discuss and debate these issues in the next meeting.”
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