Bangladesh and Afghanistan shared the trophy of the tri-nation Twenty20 tournament after rain washed out the final at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka without a ball being bowled on Tuesday.
Match officials declared the game abandoned at 9:00pm as rain showed no sign of stopping, making it impossible to start even a truncated game.
The cut-off time to hold the toss for a minimum five-over game was 9:30pm.
The wash out left the spectators, who waited for hours in the gallery for some action defying continuous downpour, utterly dejected.
‘I am totally disappointed with the result. I have come here after a long time to see Bangladesh win. But unfortunately the play could not be possible due to rain,’ said Raseduzzaman, an employee of a private business entity Mimpex Agrochemicals Limited.
Nasir Uddin, who works in the same company, said he had to defy many odds to get a ticket for the match.
‘I had to face lot of difficulties to buy tickets for the match and came to the stadium today at least two hours before the match. I was hoping for at least a five-over contest but it didn’t happen,’ he said.
Some fans, however, accepted the reality.
‘The rain was unavoidable. There was nothing that could have been done. I have come with my friends here and all of them are very disappointed. It is more disappointing to share the trophy,’ said Zarif Alam, Class XI student of Sir John Wilson School in Baridhara.
The wash-out meant Bangladesh now got a hand in the trophy of a multi-team Twenty20 tournament for the first time in their history.
They also won a tri-nation one-day international tournament in May when they beat West Indies in the final in Ireland.
It also rounded off a mixed tournament for Bangladesh, who won three of their four matches in the league phase.
Afghanistan will also leave happy after they won the preceding one-off Test series against Bangladesh by 224 runs before winning the first two matches of the Twenty20 tournament to set-up a world record for consecutive wins.
Zimbabwe were the third team in the tournament who claimed one win in the series against Afghanistan, their first against the side in the format.
Afghanistan’s Rahmanullah Gurbaz was named player of the tournament for making 133 runs in four innings.
-new age
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