The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has written to the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) over umpiring decisions in two matches of the U-19 ODIs in Muscat. Bangladesh U19 head coach Hannan Sarkar said the team has documented the decisions in the captain's report, along with a separate note about an Afghanistan U19 bowler allegedly bowling 11 overs in the third match of the series.
Cricinfo has learned that Bangladesh's team management held two lengthy discussions with match referee Yasir Latifzai in Muscat. During those meetings, they presented footage of lbw decisions they believed were incorrect, as well as video they said showed Afghanistan U19 captain Sohail Khan bowling an 11th over in the third Youth ODI, one more than the maximum of ten overs in a 50-over game. The over was later officially credited to Shah Faisal Rahimi, though the Bangladesh management maintained Sohail had bowled it.
"We have written about the umpiring decisions in the captain's report, and added a special note, specifically mentioning the eleven overs in question," Sarkar told Cricinfo. "Since the standard captain's report form doesn't typically have a dedicated space for such details, an additional note was appended after the list of decisions.
"Their captain, who is also their main strike bowler, ended up bowling 11 overs in the third match. We didn't have access to the official scorer, so we were tracking the scorecard via Cricinfo on the team manager's phone. Our own analyst's records indicated that (Sohail Khan) had already bowled ten overs. By the time we noticed this, he had already begun another over. As soon as that over concluded, we informed the umpires, though, by then, the over had already finished."
Sarkar said Bangladesh provided footage of the over to match referee Latifzai and explained how the discrepancy had occurred. According to him, another Afghanistan bowler had handed over the cap to the umpire, but then the captain decided to bowl that particular over himself but the scorer subsequently credited it to the other player.
"The discrepancy arose because the official scorer recorded ten overs (for Sohail Khan). They mistakenly credited one over to a different player, someone who hadn't actually bowled at all. What happened was that this player had handed his cap to the umpire, but then took it back, and the captain proceeded to bowl instead. The scorer failed to notice this and ended up attributing that over to the other player."
After the fourth match, Bangladesh's team management also raised concerns over decisions they felt were incorrect, including lbw and caught-behind calls. Cricinfo has learned that the concerns led to arguments between members of the Afghanistan and Bangladesh coaching staff, though they later shook hands and discussed the matter.
The BCB's game development committee, which oversees the U-19 team, subsequently emailed the ACB about the umpiring concerns. "We have written to them to simply make them aware of what was happening (in the bilateral series). We cautioned them to be more careful next time," a BCB official said.
Cricinfo has contacted the ACB for a comment.