Mashrafe says Bangladesh did no wrong, sees no need to apologise to England

Captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza believes his men did nothing wrong and were just celebrating the key wicket of Jos Buttler in the second ODI against England that sparked the on-field row.

The teams have moved to Chittagong with the series evenly poised at 1-1, but even with rain threatening to put the match in doubt at the port city, the dispute remained a key point of discussion.

The English media came down heavily on Sunday's incident which took place after Buttler's dismissal triggered raucous celebrations among the Bangladesh players.

A heated exchange between the clearly frustrated England captain and the fielders ensued and forced the umpires to step in.

Mashrafe and Sabbir Rahman were later fined 20 percent of their match fee while Buttler was officially reprimanded. Each players also had one demerit point added to their disciplinary records.

A journalist from Sky Sports attended Mashrafe's press conference on Tuesday - a day before the series decider - and brought it up.

"Look... after getting that wicket we just had a celebration and I think you can look at it as a normal thing; every team does that - if you get a wicket, you always celebrate," the Tigers skipper said.

"But there is a law and maybe the match referee thought that it went out of the code of conduct. Actually, we didn’t mean it."

The Sky reporter went on to ask if the 33-year-old captain would say sorry to his English counterpart.

Mashrafe refused to budge from his position.

"Actually, we didn’t do anything wrong, so we shouldn’t do that. Whatever we feel, we just celebrated, we don’t have to say sorry but whatever happened, the match referee was there. Still I feel that the boys just celebrated."

About the match referee's decision, Mashrafe said, "You don’t have any other option. You have to accept it."

The squabble dragged on even after the match had ended as Tamim Iqbal and Jonny Bairstow came into contact during post-match handshakes. Ben Stokes then shoved Tamim from behind.

"I saw the video and I didn’t find any fault of Tamim or my player. I am not saying it’s anyone's fault but at the same time, I didn’t find any fault with Tamim. We went very normally to shake hands," Mashrafe said.

He understands the new regulations in ICC's Code of Conduct were the reason they were penalised.

"We got fined, Sabbir and I, because of our excessive celebration which at this point of time is not allowed in the ICC's code of conduct.

"In such exciting moments, you have seen in the past as well, players celebrate this way. For instance, in the World Cup against England, when we had won we celebrated this way, but maybe at that point of time this law wasn’t there. So we have to be careful."

But Mashrafe was keen to turn the focus back on cricket.

"Whatever happened is done... I want to forget that and just want to play cricket," he said.

"We are concentrating on our preparations. Obviously, we will start the game as we always do. I am expecting nothing to happen on the ground and also expecting a good match."

The final ODI is scheduled for a 2:30pm start but the build-up has been marred by rain.

There has been 30mm of rain in Chittagong in the last 24 hours and heavy rain has been forecast throughout Wednesday.

If the weather does relent, however, the match promises to be a mouth-watering climax to the series, though it could be a shortened affair.