BCB president Nazmul Hassan has called AHM Mustafa Kamal’s resignation from the ICC ‘unfortunate’. He has also said the controversy stemming from the Bangladesh-India World Cup quarterfinal would not affect relations between the two countries.
Hassan said he hadn’t attended the March 28 meeting where Kamal was told to apologise or withdraw his comments about the umpiring following the March 19 game.
“There was a meeting before the day of the final,” Hassan said. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend the meeting. There it was decided that the chairman would give the trophy. It is an exception in the ICC. It was unfortunate. I heard a couple of hours ago that Kamal has resigned. This whole episode is unfortunate. It would have been better had it not happened.”
Hassan said the ICC CEO David Richardson has told the BCB that the ICC would investigate and analyse the Bangladesh-India quarter-final ball-by-ball.
“Just after the Bangladesh-India match, we gave the ICC a letter containing our observations,” Hassan said. “The initial response from the ICC came from the CEO Dave Richardson. He said that they will investigate it ball-by-ball, and they would let us know after their analysis.”
Under ICC’s standard operating procedures, every umpiring decision is analysed, to assess the umpires as well as to enable them to improve. It is also learnt that umpiring decisions from the India v Bangladesh match were accessed as part of the ICC’s normal process and feedback was provided to the BCB.
Hassan clarified that the BCB’s complaints were only confined to the umpiring during the quarter-final, and had nothing to do with Bangladesh’s opponents in the game.
“I can’t find any reason for [a strain in the relationship between India and Bangladesh]. It has nothing to do with the relation of these two countries. We are not complaining about a certain country. We spoke about the umpiring. We stressed on technology not being used when it was available. It happened more than once.”
The ICC Board will discuss the vacant position in the next meeting on April 15 and 16. Hassan said Kamal was a choice of the Bangladesh government that the BCB passed on to the ICC. If the BCB is asked again, a similar process may be followed.
“The system was that the ICC had asked BCB to give a name,” Hassan said. “We gave a name that was approved by our government. The next ICC meeting is very important to know what they are thinking. We have to know the procedure. We also have to speak to the honorable Prime Minister, because the last person was approved by her as well.
“It is not an important issue who will become president for three months. The president is a largely ceremonial post. The only thing was giving away the World Cup trophy but that too didn’t happen.”
