Veteran Sri Lanka all-rounder Angelo Mathews defended Sri Lanka’s decision to not shake hands with Bangladesh players after their controversial 2023 World Cup match at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Monday, November 6 as well. Mathews also added that they will respect people who respect them as well. However, a massive controversy took place during the match after Mathews became the first batter to be dismissed timed out in international cricket in the 25th over of Sri Lanka’s innings as well.
He came to bat after the fall of Sadeera Samarawickrama’s wicket, the veteran failed to face his first ball within the stipulated time (two minutes) due to a helmet malfunction as well. Meanwhile, Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan appealed for a timed-out dismissal and the on-field umpire upheld it as well. And, later Sri Lanka went on to lose the game by three wickets as well.
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Speaking after the volatile clash, Mathews was quoted as saying by the ICC: “You need to respect people who respect us. It doesn’t mean that they have to respect the game itself. I mean, we all are ambassadors of this beautiful game.”
The veteran went on to admit that his dismissal came at an important time in the match, at a point from where the game could have gone either way also.
“I wasn’t trying to waste time. I wasn’t trying to get advantage of anything. It was just pure equipment malfunction. And it just happened for the very first time in my career. And I’m absolutely shocked. I’m not going to say that if I had batted today, we would have won the match. I’m not saying that,” he stated.“I mean, I’m just talking about that incident where, obviously, it was a crucial time of the match. And we could have gone either way. I mean, we could have got 54, 60 runs more as well,” Mathews added.
While Angelo Mathews slammed Shakib and Bangladesh over his timed-out dismissal at a post-match press conference, the Bangladesh skipper backed his decision to not withdraw the appeal against the all-rounder as it is within the rules.
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“One of our fielders came to me and said, if you appeal, the law says he’s out because he hasn’t taken his guard within the time frame. So, then I appealed to the umpires, who asked me If I was going to call him back or not. I said I won’t call him back,” Shakib said. “I know him very well; he knows me very well. So, he came and asked me whether if I (will) withdraw my appeal or not If I want to, I said, you know, I understand your situation. It was unfortunate, but I don’t want to. It was in the rules that a batter has to come to the crease within that certain period of time and he wasn’t there at that time.”
