Board of Control for Cricket (BCCI) secretary Anurag Thakur on Friday downplayed ICC president Mustafa Kamal's 'controversial umpiring' claims following Bangladesh's 109-run defeat against India, saying the time has come to move ahead and look for the semi-finals.
Thakur, however, said that Kamal should have raised this issue on the ICC platform during the meetings
"ICC President has raised many issues. I wish he could have taken all these issues on the ICC platform during the ICC meetings. Now, it is a reality that we have won against Bangladesh and India has won all the previous games at the league stage," Thakur said.
"I think the time has come to move ahead and look for the semi-finals. We can discuss these things in the next meetings," he added.
Meanwhile, former cricketer Kirti Azad said there are human errors and added that the umpires also commit errors.
"But then you have the DRS (Decision Review System) system where you can go and ask for review. Secondly, I think except for Rohit Sharma's decision of no-ball, which I again think was a human error, there was nothing wrong," said Azad.
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"He is talking about 12 decisions; he should let us know which 12 decisions," he added.
Azad further said that the giant screens should be used to display only game related information.
"Yes I do agree with him that on the giant screen you should only be giving the information about the ICC, the matches that are going to be played, or the scores and other information. They shouldn't be putting up things like 'Jeetega bhai jeetega, India jeetega', or 'Australia jeetega'. Those things should not come up because ICC is supposed to be neutral," he added.
The ICC chief, who reportedly threatened to quit over the umpiring in his country's quarterfinal defeat to India in the World Cup, said that the umpires' decisions seemed to have been 'pre-arranged'.
The ICC chief Kamal was reportedly angry that Indian opener Rohit Sharma, who top-scored with 137, had not been given not out on 90 when he was caught at deep mid-wicket off the bowling of Rubel Hossain.
India yesterday beat Bangladesh by 109 runs at a packed Melbourne Cricket Ground, with Rohit Sharma scoring a blistering 137 to prop the Men in Blue to a competitive total of 302-6. Umesh Yadav, with brilliant bowling figures of 4-31, was instrumental in restricting the opposition to a mere 193.