ICC goes hard on Tanzim Hasan Sakib after his fight with Rohit Paudel; imposes once-in-a-lifetime punishment

Bangladesh seamer Tanzim Hasan Sakib has been reprimanded by the ICC for his inappropriate behaviour against Nepal captain Rohit Paudel 2 days ago.

Nepal and Bangladesh both were playing their last Group D match of the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 before the start of the Super 8 stages of the event. The match, which took place at the Arnos Vale Stadium in St. Vincent, had everything required for a match to become spicy. And when it comes to spice and aggression, Tanzim Sakib barely misses out.

What happened between Tanzim Hasan Sakib and Rohit Paudel?

Nepal had won the toss and asked Najmul Hossain Shanto's side to bat first on what was a bowling-friendly surface. Following a terrible start to the innings, Bangladesh somehow managed to post a total of 106 on the board with no batter even scoring 20 runs.

The highest scorer was the experienced All-rounder Shakib Al Hasan, who scored 17 off 22. Mahmadullah, Jaker Ali, Rishad Hossain and Taskin Ahmed scored 13, 12, 13 and 12 respectively. In response, Nepal struggled to get going and was eventually folded for a score of just 85.

But the incident between Tanzim Hasan Sakib and Rohit Paudel took place after the conclusion of the 3rd over. Sakib had just finished bowling that over with Paudel playing towards the cover region for a dot.

As Paudel was approaching the non-striker's end, Tanzim Sakib appeared to be giving a vicious look to the Nepal captain. The staring between the two players reached a point when Sakib started asking Rohit Paudel as to what happened. Paudel in response asked the Bangladesh seamer to go back to the field.

But Tanzim Sakib was in a mood to pick up a fight, however, the on-field Umpires and other players intervened and stopped the argument. It was perhaps the most heated exchange that we have seen in the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 so far but the ICC weren't going to let go of Sakib like that.

ICC strips off 15% of matches of Sakib for eyeballing Rohit Paudel

Earlier today, the ICC took to its official website and revealed that they have reprimanded Tanzim Hasan Sakib for the incident. On-field Umpires of that match - Ahsan Raza, and Sam Nogajski with 3rd and 4th Umpires Jayaraman Madangopal and Kumar Dharamsena had levelled the charges against him.

Richie Richardson, who is a part of ICC's Elite Match referee panel, charged 15% of Tanzim Sakib's match fees. A formal hearing wasn't required as Tanzim had admitted to the offence.

"Tanzim was found to have breached Article 2.12 of the ICC Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel, which relates to “inappropriate physical contact with a Player, Player Support Personnel, Umpire, Match Referee or any other person (including a spectator during an International Match"." - ICC said in a statement.

Bangldesh to face Australia in first Super 8 match

Meanwhile, Tanzim Sakib and the Bangladeshi team will be in action on June 21st against Australia in their opening Super 8 match. The Bangla Tigers will then taken on India and Afghanistan on 22nd and 25th June.