The silent anthem

Mismanagement on the part of the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) and the local organisers has so far been a feature of Bangladesh's ongoing three-match T20I series against Afghanistan in Dehradun. The latest incident to create a negative impression among Bangladesh fans involved the Bangladesh national anthem before the first T20I on Sunday, when it seemed to television audiences back home that the players were not paying attention during the national anthem.

However, there was actually no Bangladeshi national anthem being played at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium speakers and it was only heard on television. One of the players, requesting anonymity, said that they were actually asked to pretend for the cameras that the anthem was playing when they received the signal from the broadcasters.

However, the organisers did play the Afghanistan national anthem at the ground, and that angered the Bangladesh players, but they did not want to comment on the record.

According to the Bangladesh team manager Khaled Mahmud, the broadcasters later apologised for the incident.

"We were told by the broadcasters that there will be no sound during the national anthem and nobody in the ground actually knew when the national anthem was played. By the time we were informed, it was too late and that was the reason it appeared on television that the payers were casual while it was playing. But there was sound during Afghanistan's national anthem... I don't know why it happened and later the ACB officials and the broadcasters apologised to us.

"We were told that the national anthem will be played only before the first match but I hope that it will be played in the next two games with proper sound. I think there is no point blaming our cricketers as they were totally unaware of it," Mahmud told reporters on Monday.