BCB to dig into U-19s’ Malaysia debacle

The Bangladesh Cricket Board will seek an explanation from the management of the Under-19 team after the humiliating
defeat against Malaysia in a recent one-day match, said a top official.
Malaysia, an associate member of the ICC with little credentials in the game, stunned Bangladesh by three wickets on Friday, a day after they conceded a 10-wicket defeat.
The humiliation may have gone unnoticed by most of the Bangladesh media, but not the new officials of the BCB, who have taken over barely a week ago.
‘I talked to coach Fahim (Nazmul Abedin) over phone immediately after I heard the result and wanted to know what went wrong in the match. We are taking it very seriously,’ said Gazi Ashraf Hossain, the newly-appointed chairman of the cricket operations committee.
‘We will seek an explanation from the team management once they return home as no match is insignificant to us,’ said Gazi Ashraf, also a former national captain.
‘They have played well in Sri Lanka and also defeated Malaysia by maximum margin. It was unthinkable that they would lose to the same team,’ said Gazi Ashraf.
In Sri Lanka, the Bangladesh Under-19 team reached the final of a tri-nation tournament at the expense of the hosts before losing to India.
They went to Malaysia straight from Colombo to play four one-day matches as part of their build-up for the ICC Under-19 World Cup. Malaysia will host the competition in February-March next year.
Considering the defeat to Malaysia is a wake-up call for the Bangladesh under-19 team, Gazi Ashraf said he has already asked coach Fahim to send full details of the match.
‘At present we don’t have the full scorecard of the match. We will get an idea about what had happened once we see it. I also told Fahim to send us the full scorecards of the next two matches as well,’ said Gazi Ashraf.
‘Now I just hope it was an upset, which I must say can happen in cricket at any level,’ added the former national captain.
The team, led by middle-order batsman Mahmudul Hasan, is expected to return home on August 10.