Bangladesh 'made to lose' in World Cup: Hasina

Dhaka, March 21 (IANS) Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said her country was "made to lose" the cricket World Cup quarterfinal against India, according to media reports on Saturday.

"There's nothing to be upset. Everyone has seen how we were made to lose. We will win in the future," she said, according to a bdnews24.com report.

"We would have won if the umpires did not give wrong decisions. Insha Allah, Bangladesh will win in the future. Bangladesh will become world champions someday," she said.

The prime minister's comments came after International Cricket Council (ICC) president Mustafa Kamal, from Bangladesh, courted a major controversy when he said the on-field umpires, England's Ian Gould and Pakistan's Aleem Dar, had entered the match with an agenda, according to media reports.

Kamal questioned the umpires' integrity and went on to imply that they had favoured India in their adjudication, The Melbourne Age reported.

The controversy centred around a decision by Gould and Dar, in which Indian batsman Rohit Sharma was adjudged caught off a no-ball when he was batting on 90, and hence, was given not out.

The umpires ruled that the ball from Rubel Hossain was above the batsman's waist and therefore was not a legal delivery, though television replays showed that the ball had only been at waist height when it hit Sharma's bat.

Sharma made a century and Bangladesh went on to lose the match by 109 runs at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) which put paid to their hopes of qualifying for the semi-finals for the first time in their cricket history.

The ICC, in a statement on Friday, refuted the allegations made by Kamal and termed his comments "very unfortunate, but made in his personal capacity" and said that "he should have been more considerate in his criticism of ICC match officials", according to the Melbourne Age report.