Bangladesh pace bowler and T20I vice-captain Taskin Ahmed apologised to his team mates for turning up late in the field after missing the team bus during their Super 8 game against India in the just concluded ICC T20 World Cup, reports Cricbuzz.
A top BCB official confirmed the development on Monday on request of anonymity adding that he missed the team bus as he could not get up from his sleep on time. Quite a few eyebrows were raised after Bangladesh opted to play only two pace bowlers against India during their Super 8 clash and decided to drop Taskin from the playing XI.
Cricbuzz understands that the BCB decided to keep one official of the touring party in the team hotel after they failed to make contact with the pacer as he was not picking up the phone. There is wide-scale speculation that head coach Chandika Hathurusingha decided to not pick him in the XI, even though the official begs to differ.
"It is true that he (Taskin) joined the team later after missing the team bus," said the official on Monday. "But why he did not 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 coach and the player) how he played the next game against Afghanistan," he said. "He apologized to his team mates and everyone for not being able to get up on time and that's it and no need to make an issue out of it," he added.
Bangladesh head coach Hathurusingha was not ready to make any official comment in this regard when contacted by this website as he insisted on focus being on the performances on-field.