Bangladesh Cricket Board said on Monday that they will lodge an official complaint to International Cricket Council about South Africa’s umpiring at Kingsmead after the ongoing series.
Several decisions went against the host in the two-match Test series opener while tourist skipper Mominul Haque insisted after the game that they were a victim of severe sledging.
According to players of the touring camp and BCB officials, the umpiring of Adrian Thomas Holdstock and his senior partner Marais Erasmus was certainly not up to the mark.
”We will file an official complaint to ICC about umpiring after the series,” BCB cricket operation chairman Jalal Yunus told Cricbuzz on Monday (April 4). “We have already lodged one complaint about the umpiring after the ODI series and it was given to the match referee (Andy Pycroft) but he did pay any heed to it,” he said.
“Regarding umpiring decision everyone had seen globally and we cannot do anything as they are the final judge but after the Test in Port Elizabeth we will go with everything that had happened.
”You have seen Mominul raised concerns over sledging and we feel umpires should have told both parties impartially about it but instead of doing that they warned our cricketers,” he said.
Jalal added that they were quite disappointed as they expected the umpires to make up for lost time as the start of the Test was delayed due to a sightscreen issue by half an hour on the opening day.
“To make up this half an hour, they extended the lunch session instead of starting early, which we usually see,” he said.
”It is definitely at the umpire’s discretion, but generally, we see them making up for lost time by starting early but they didn’t do that looked like they did not want our pace bowlers to have a go at the opposition,” he said. After the fourth day’s play, Mahmud urged for neutral umpiresto be officiating and Jalal echoed the same sentiment.
”I feel we should now have neutral umpires,” he concluded.
Cricbuzz understands that according to the MOU signed by both boards, it was mentioned that if a match is delayed it will be compensated by playing in the afternoon and not having an early start.
