The T20 World Cup 2024 was witness to a controversial moment during the Bangladesh vs Nepal match on Monday, involving a contentious DRS call. Bangladesh successfully defended 106, the lowest total ever defended in the men's T20 World Cup, to beat Nepal by 21 runs on Monday at the Arnos Vale Ground, sealing progression to the Super Eight stage of the tournament. Putting into bat first, Bangladesh were bundled for 106. But, Tanzim Hasan Sakib scythed through Nepal's top order and Mustafizur Rahman's death bowling masterclass helped Bangladesh pull off the lowest successful defence in a men's T20 World Cup.
The controversial moment happened when Tanzim Hasan Sakib and Jaker Ali were at the crease in the 14th over. The former was given LBW off Sandeep Lamicchane. Sakib even went walking towards the pavilion. Just then, visuals showed that the non-striker Jake was looking at one particular direction. And suddenly, he asked Sakib to go for DRS with less than a second left on the review timer.
The DRS call was criticised by social media, with some users asking, "how can the ICC allow this" in a T20 World Cup.
After suffering a 21-run defeat against Bangladesh, Nepal captain Rohit Paudel admitted that losing four wickets in the powerplay put his side under a lot of pressure but they fought back well in their last ICC T20 World Cup match.
Bangladesh defeated Nepal by 21 runs at the Arnos Vale Ground in Kingstown, St Vincent, defending the lowest score (106) in the big event's history.
The captain lauded his bowlers for their superb performance against Bangladesh and admitted that the batters needed to play well. Paudel said they need to step up as a batting unit and assess the wicket a lot better and added that the team has great potential and he hopes to do better going ahead.
"As a bowling unit we bowled really well. We could have done better with the bat. The top order could have batted tighter. Bangladesh bowled really well with the new ball. Losing 4 wickets in the powerplay put us under a lot of pressure. They were always challenging us, they bowled really well in the powerplay. As a batting unit we need to step up, we need to know where to score runs and how to assess conditions," Paudel said in a post-match presentation.
With IANS and ANI inputs