The Indian Premier League (IPL) is famous for bringing together some of the best cricket players from around the world.  But even though cricket players from all over the world play together, language hurdles often make it hard for them to understand each other.  David Warner, who used to lead Sunrisers Hyderabad, recently talked about one of these moments featuring Bangladesh's Mustafizur Rahman.

Photo: BCCIIn 2016, Mustafizur played his first IPL game for Sunrisers Hyderabad. His deadly cutters made the news right away.  On the other hand, his poor English skills caused a few funny incidents off the pitch.  Tom Moody, who was head coach at the time, told ESPNcricinfo that it was hard for the team to talk to the Bangladeshi pacer at first. “You might think you are getting a message across, but the player you're talking to might be taking something completely different away with them.”

David Warner once used body language to talk to Mustafizur. He pointed at his own head to tell the bowler to "think smart" about the next ball he was going to bowl.  But Mustafizur got the signal wrong; he thought Warner was telling him to bowl at the batter's head.  What came next?  A surprise bouncer!

In a country like India, where there are over 22 official languages and dozens of accents, these kinds of situations show how hard it can be for foreign teams to communicate.

To bridge the gap, Sunrisers Hyderabad turned to Ricky Bhui, a Bengali-speaking player from West Bengal, to act as an interpreter for Mustafizur.

Even though he had trouble with speaking, Mustafizur did amazingly in his first IPL season.  He took 17 wickets in 16 games and was a key part of the Sunrisers' win in the 2016 IPL title. He was also the first player from outside of India to win the Emerging Player of the Tournament award.

This has happened to more than just Mustafizur.  Indian spinner Piyush Chawla once said that he needed a translation to understand the accents of the Australian players.  When Rashid Khan played at Sunrisers in 2017, Mohammad Nabi spoke for him.  After that, Rashid took over that job for Noor Ahmad at Gujarat Titans.