 "Gulbadin Naib's apparent hamstring injury has led to a controversy.")
Gulbadin Naib’s sudden and surprising bout of cramp during Afghanistan’s Super Eight match against Bangladesh has become a topic of scrutiny for commentators and fans on social media. Naib went down holding the back of his leg in the 12th over and was helped off the field by Naveen-ul-Haq and Afghanistan support staff. Captain Rashid Khan, however, didn’t seem happy during the incident.
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Maybe because Naib’s sudden injury came up when he was not moving on the field and also after Afghanistan coach Jonathan Trott was asking his players to slow down the game with his gestures from outside the ropes. At that stage of the play, Bangladesh were 81/7 and had fallen behind the DLS par score.
The injury break was accompanied by a rain break that was quickly over with the target being revised to 114 from 116 in 19 overs. Initially, Najibullah Zadran came on as the substitute fielder but Naib was back in the 13th over and also bowled the 15th over, dismissing Tanzim Hasan Sakib.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsNaib eventually finished with bowling figures of 1/5 from two overs as Afghanistan won by eight runs to reach the T20 World Cup semi-final for the first time . And after the victory, Naib was seen running full tilt while celebrating the feat.
His so-called injury, however, sparked controversy on social media with experts and fans slamming Naib for the incident.
Afghanistan captain Rashid, however, underplayed the incident after the match.
“Gulbadin had some cramp, I think. Hopefully, he will be alright. But that wicket that he gave us was a massive one at that stage,” Rashid said.
“Well, he (Naib) had some cramp, I don’t know what happened to him and I don’t know what’s going on in social media but that doesn’t matter - it’s just the on-field injury which comes and then we haven’t lost any overs, the rain came and we just went off, it’s not something like brought a massive difference in the game. We came back on field after five minutes and there was no massive difference. For me, it’s just like a small injury comes in, then you have to take some time.”