Super-4 scheduling is disappointing: BD captain

DUBAI: Poor Asia Cup scheduling has left another participating captain angry with Bangladesh’s Mashrafe Mortaza expressing his disappointment over it.

Soon after Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed took a swipe at the organisers over their preferential treatment of India, Murtaza also raised the issue.“It is very disappointing,” he said. “Even a mad person would be upset. Basically what has happened is that we were made the second team in Group B even before we played the last game. It is frustrating.

“We came here with a plan. We would play Sri Lanka first and if we won and played well [against Afghanistan], we would be group champions and play the runners-up of Group A. But this morning we heard that we are already Group B runners-up regardless of whether we win or lose. So of course it is disappointing.”

Mashrafe’s grouses were two-fold: that Bangladesh, if they topped their group following Thursday’s match, would not have the advantage of playing the second-placed team from the other group in their opening Super Four match on Friday; and that their two matches on consecutive days would be in two different cities, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Until Wednesday, oddly, only India had been designated a label - A1 - in the tournament handbook. No other team, in the handbook at least, had labels assigned to them. —with inputs from agencies