Gulbadin Naib to face ban for ‘faking injury’ in clash against Bangladesh?

The Afghanistan vs Bangladesh T20 World Cup game saw a controversial moment, when Afghanistan’s Gulbadin Naib fell on the ground, apparently due to injury. Naib, who was fielding in the slips, complained of cramps during the 12th over bowled by spinner Noor Ahmed, after their coach Jonathan Trott was seen on camera asking his players to slow down as Bangladesh had fallen behind on the Duckworth-Lewis par score in the rain-hit Super 8 clash.

At that stage, Bangladesh were 81/7, two runs behind on the DLS par score in a revised chase of 114 in 19 overs. Afghanistan managed to win the match by 8 runs to enter the semi-finals, however their management was trolled by many fans on social media for using cheap tactics to win the game.

“The coach sends a message out to say slow it down, slow it down and the first slip just dives on the ground needlessly. That is unacceptable. Gone off anyway. I get that might have gone off anyway for the rain,” said Simon Doull while commentating.

Naib was given treatment and was taken off the field by teammate Naveen-ul-Haq and a support staff as it started raining again and players ran to the dugout.

Now the question that arises here is that can Naib be banned by the ICC for faking an injury? According to ICC’s Code of Conduct, ‘time-wasting’ is deemed a level 1 or 2 offense under Article 2.10.7. For Level 1 offense, maximum punishment is 100% match-fee fine and two suspension points. If a player is given four suspension points in one year, may be banned for either one Test match or two ODIs or T20Is.

No such news has come so far that the match officials and ICC are opening an investigation against Naib. Also, Naib has said that he was facing injury issues, which makes it difficult to prove that the time-wasting was deliberate.

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