In one of the most dramatic moments of the 2024 T20 World Cup, Afghanistan’s Gulbadin Naib appeared to fake an injury to delay the match against Bangladesh. The incident occurred in the 12th over, with Bangladesh chasing Afghanistan’s 116 and batting at 81/7 in a game that had previously suffered several weather delays.
As the drizzle resumed unexpectedly, Afghanistan coach Jonathan Trott told his players to “slow it down,” implying that they should find ways to bowl as few deliveries as possible (such as extra field changes or conversations).
Gulbadin Naib, who was standing at slips, suddenly grabbed his hamstring and fell, drawing the physio’s attention and prompting the umpire to call the game off. Simon Doull fumed on television at what he was seeing, claiming that such behaviors have no place in cricket.
View the scene here:
It made sense to the Afghans. At the moment, they were only two runs ahead of the DLS par score for Bangladesh. If the game had been rained out, Afghanistan would have advanced to the semifinals. If Afghanistan had bowled another ball and Bangladesh had scored a boundary off it before the washout, the Bangla Tigers would have won.
Even Afghanistan’s captain, Rashid Khan, seemed dissatisfied with Gulbadin Naib. However, the game was delayed as the rain began to fall heavily. Fortunately for the neutrals, the interruption was brief, and the game resumed quickly, with only one over lost.
Gulbadin Naib comes back to take a wicket after the break
To make it even more extraordinary and memorable, Naib stayed off the field for a while after the restart, but then returned, appearing totally healthy, bowled his first over in the 15th over of the innings, and took a wicket with the second ball.
Tanzim Hasan Sakib couldn’t hold his short ball down and had to leave, much to the amusement of Doull, who summed it up nicely as “paper hamstring but a golden arm!”.
