ICC Champions Trophy: Bangladeshi Fan Gets Downright Dirty With Depicting India As ‘Dog’ Ahead of Semis

ICC Champions Trophy 2017 is all set to get its finalists as England is currently playing against Pakistan in the first semi-final and India will be playing against the neighboring nation Bangladesh tomorrow. While everyone will be looking forward to an India vs Pakistan clash in the ICC Champions Trophy Final as these two nations are part of one of the biggest rivalries in International cricket.

However, when it comes to Bangladesh, while the rivalry is not big as the above mentioned one, Bangladeshi fans have created quite a buzz whenever the team has faced Indian Cricket team.

The fact that Bangladesh has entered the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 semi-finals, is a huge cause for celebration for the fans. Their reputation as cricket’s most underrated side has slowly been fading away and now a team full of energetic as well as talented players represent the country with pride and a lot of fire.

Gone are the days when they were considered pushovers in limited overs cricket and as a result, the semifinal match between Bangladesh and India will a huge platform for the ‘Tigers’ to solidify their presence in the big league.

However, facing Indian is one of the toughest tasks for any cricket playing nation and while the team members are keeping their calm, Bangladeshi fans have lost it and are getting downright disrespectful for the Virat Kohli-led team.

Earlier, we have seen Bangladeshi fans doing the same on a couple of occasions. Before the Asia Cup 2016 final, an image surfaced online that featured Taskin Ahmed who was holding MS Dhoni’s amputated head, which, as expected, did not go down very well with Indian fans. Call it irony or the fruit of one’s own seed, it was Dhoni’s knock that ensured Bangladesh’s defeat the final.

Before that, after a historic three-match ODI series win against India at home in June 2015, a Bangladeshi newspaper ran an advertisement featuring Mustafizur Rahman, the bowlers who dismantled the whole Indian batting lineup in the series, holding a razor knife and Indian players standing with their half-shaved heads.

However, these two Incidents were targeted towards Indian players but this time around, a Bangladeshi fan touched new lows when he shared a picture, depicting Bangladesh as a Tiger who was pouncing on a ‘Dog’ wearing India’s National Flag.

While Bangladesh deserves the credit for its team’s terrific performance in the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 so far, the animated image definitely won’t amuse the cricket supporting fraternity.

It is extremely disgraceful to see some sections of the fanbase trying to take the attention away from what is expected to be a great game on Thursday, using a photograph like this that disrespects a nation’s flag.

But despite this “rivalry”, we can only hope that these off-field tensions will not affect the India vs Bangladesh match, which is what matters the most and at the end of the day it will be played in a way which is hard but fair.