All about focus, no apologies

Bangladesh skipper Mashrafe Bin Mortaza has said that his team does not need to apologise to Jos Buttler for the heated exchanges that took place between the two teams during the second ODI.

Elaborating on the incident, which led to the skipper and Sabbir Rahman receiving fines and demerit points, he said: "After getting that wicket [of Jos Buttler], we just had a celebration and I think you can look at it as a normal thing that every team does. But, there's a law and the match referee thought that it went outside the code of conduct. We did not mean it [to hurt Buttler]. But whatever happened is done and we are trying to play a good match tomorrow."

When a journalist from Sky Sports asked Mashrafe if he would apologise to Buttler, Mashrafe replied: "Actually we didn't do anything wrong and so we shouldn't. We feel that we just celebrated. We don't have to be sorry for that."

Furthermore, Mashrafe also said that the events in the last match wouldn't make the final ODI any more tense.

"Actually the discussion and a criticism of the matter has not bothered me at all. I have never thought about these things in my career. I have played for 16 years and we have heard many comments against us and yet we continued playing," said Mashrafe.

"Yes, things happen in the heat of the moment, but we don't need to go overboard with this. Everyone will have to take this easily. The match referee was there. He saw our mistakes and we have been fined. I have accepted this and this is a gentleman's game and we will try to play our best," he added.

"Our team is completely normal and I am hundred per cent sure that my team is not thinking about these things. I am sure all our players will be calm and we will try to do our best in the final ODI.

"Sabbir and I got fined because of our excessive celebration which at this point of time is not allowed in the ICC's code of conduct. You have seen in the past as well that we celebrated in similar ways. Take for instance, the World Cup game against England. When we won that game, we had celebrated this way. But maybe at that point of time, the law wasn't there. So we have to be cautious," he added.

'TAMIM DID NOTHING WRONG'

Apart from the issue related to Buttler, Mashrafe was also asked about the incident that took place after the match, when the players were shaking hands with each other. An argument took place between Ben Stokes and Tamim Iqbal and the video of it has since been widely circulated on social media. Stokes had even tweeted about the incident, saying that he would not shake hands with a player who 'puts a shoulder' to his teammate.

Regarding that issue, Mashrafe said: "I saw the video and I didn't find any fault in Tamim. In fact, I don't want to blame anyone. We had gone to shake hands normally when we lost the first ODI and we wanted to do the same when we won the second.

"I don't want to blame anyone, but if you speak of Tamim's fault then I will tell you that I have seen the video and I was standing right ahead of him and I didn't hear or see Tamim do anything wrong."

Prior to Mashrafe's press conference, Moeen Ali had said that some of their players, especially their captain Jos Buttler would be desperate to win the final ODI.

When asked for a response, Mashrafe said: "Look, our target here is to win the series. And we are focused on that. Now, if you want to win the game just for the sake of certain things that happened in the last game, then that will create unnecessary pressure. We are just thinking of playing our game normally and nothing else."