Asia Cup 2018: Mashrafe Mortaza unhappy with the replanned schedule
Asian Cricket Council (ACC) has released a newly planned schedule for the Super Four stage of the Asia Cup on Wednesday. Bangladesh are considered as runners-up of the group B and it made Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza disappointed as they are yet to play their last match of group B that is set to be held on 20 September at Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi.
Bangladesh started off their Asia Cup campaign by beating five-time champions Sri Lanka by a big margin of 137 runs. The Tigers are playing this Asia Cup aiming to add a new chapter in their cricketing history.
Sri Lanka lost their second Group B match to Afghanistan and are knocked out of the tournament. Now, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are ready to take on each other in the final match of their group.
Regardless of the result of the last group match, Bangladesh will have to play the Super Four stage as runners-up of group B. This decision of ACC came as bothersome to Bangladesh team as Mashrafe Mortaza, captain of Bangladesh team did not take any time to express his disappointment.
"We had a plan. We thought if we can make ourselves champion of group B, we play A1 on the Super Four stage. But, this morning (19 September) we heard we are already runners-up of group B even before we played the last group game. It is very disappointing," Mashrafe said while talking about the newly released schedule.
According to the new schedule, Bangladesh will fly to Dubai from Abu Dhabi just after completing the Thursday's clash against Afghanistan to participate in the Friday's Super Four match against India.
Mashrafe thinks the method of rescheduling a tournament should get operated by clear rules. He further said, "we are playing an international tournament and we are representing our country. It is important. But whether you are talking about group stage matches or Super Four matches, there are certain rules within which they operate. So, it is disappointing, because we are getting away from rules."
While every other team is bound to travel to Abu Dhabi from Dubai and to Dubai from Abu Dhabi, India are staying only in Dubai. Rohit Sharma and his team will play all of their matches in the same city and they won't be bearing the problem of spending hours for travelling.