Dhaka: In a departure from convention, Bangladeshi journalists reacted very strongly — even getting personal with Asian Cricket Council chief executive Syed Ashraful Huq — to only one desi player, left-arm spinner Mohammed Rafique, being picked in the Asia XIV for the Afro-Asia Cup.

They first targeted the country’s nominee on the four-member selection panel, oldie A.F.M. Farooque, and one then went after Huq, who once called the shots in the Bangladesh Cricket Board.

Huq, who had no role in Friday’s selection meeting except acting as convenor for a couple of minutes before the deliberations began, was asked to give his reaction “as a Bangladeshi.”

He refused.

What irked the journalists most is that spearhead Mashrafe Mortaza didn’t find a place but Shoaib Akhtar did. Shoaib, it may be recalled, has been off cricket for months.

The point they tried making, almost violently, is that despite qualifying for the World Cup’s Super 8 (India, by the way, didn’t), Bangladeshi players got a raw deal.

They weren’t impressed that no less than four had been selected for the Twenty20 International.

Former Pakistan opener Mohsin Khan, one of the selectors, remained unfazed. “I entered the meeting to pick an Asian team... That’s what my colleagues and I did,” he told The Telegraph.

THE SCHEDULE

June 5: Women’s Twenty20 International in Bangalore; Men’s Twenty20 International in Bangalore.

June 6: First Asia vs Africa ODI in Bangalore.

June 8: Afro-Asian Cricket Cooperation seminar in Chennai. Depending on his political engagements, Imran Khan could be one of the guest speakers.

June 9: Second Asia vs Africa ODI in Chennai.

June 10: Third and final Asia vs Africa ODI in Chennai.