Veteran Bangladesh Pacer ‘overslept’ and missed T20 World Cup game against India: report

Veteran Bangladesh cricketer Taskin Ahmed missed the 2024 T20 World Cup match against India due to “oversleeping”, a report has claimed. The report states that team management were unable to contact Taskin because he was sleeping in his room and as a result missed the team bus before the meet. A team official was forced to stay at the team hotel because he was unable to contact Taskin and he joined the team late at the venue. The report added that Taskin apologized to his teammates for missing the team bus and the coach decided not to play him in the game against India.

It came as a big surprise to fans and pundits alike that Bangladesh did not include Taskin in their playing XI and opted for Tanzim Hasan Sakib and Mustafizur Rahman as their only two fast bowlers.

“It is true that he (Taskin) joined the team later after missing the team bus,” an official told Cricbuzz.

“But why he didn’t play only the coach can say because whether he was in the plan or not (against India) is something that can be answered by the head coach (Chandika Hathurusingha),” he said.

“If there was any issue (between the coach and the player) about how he would play the next game against Afghanistan,” he said. “He apologized to his teammates and everyone for not being able to wake up on time and that was it, there is no need to create problems with it,” he added.

Bangladesh coach Chandika Hathurusingha has not made any comment on the matter.

India won the encounter against Bangladesh by 50 runs. The Indian batsmen were in excellent form as Hardik Pandya (50), Rohit Sharma (23), Virat Kohli (37), Rishabh Pant (36) and Shivam Dube (34) scored runs to guide their team to an important victory in the 2024 T20 World Cup.