Thu. Mar 28th, 2024

The IPL has kicked off in some prime fashion as the controversies have been started right from the first week of the IPL where the Delhi Capitals met the Kings XI Punjab.

Umpiring controversy has struck early in the 13th edition of Indian Premier League with Virender Sehwag, Irfan Pathan and team co-owner Preity Zinta among those calling out the decision to dock one run from Kings XI Punjab’s score in the run-chase against Delhi Capitals in Dubai on Sunday.

In the 19th over of the KXIP run-chase, Mayank Agarwal and Chris Jordan ran two after the former squeezed a Kagiso Rabada yorker down to long-on. While Sunil Gavaskar, on commentary, was praising the running between the wickets, square leg umpire Nitin Menon signalled one run short.

Simon Doull, the former New Zealand bowler, said on commentary that the run was absolutely fine on replays as it was quite clear Jordan’s bat was over the line.

The dreaded bent elbow touch on right shoulder meant that KXIP were given just one run for that ball. In the end, after 20 overs each, both teams finished on 157/8. The Super Over did not go KXIP’s way and DC walked away with two points.

While two was counted on the scoreboard then, the score was revised to 145/6 at the start of the last over after Agarwal took three more runs in the 19th over.

“I travelled enthusiastically during a pandemic, did six days of quarantine and five Covid-19 tests with a smile but that one Short Run hit me hard. She also mentioned the fact that what is the use of such high technology if it cannot be implemented. It’s time @BCCI introduces new rules. This cannot happen every year,” Zinta tweeted.

 

While DC had the chance to kill the game off the very next ball when Agarwal skied one to Shreyas Iyer that was dropped at deep midwicket, the one run eventually was the difference between a win and a tie for KXIP. As has been pointed out, there is no sense in using technology to call no-balls and at the same time, not using the third umpire to resolve such tight decisions when it would have taken a couple of minutes extra to make the right call.

There has been no official comment from IPL about the matter yet.

In IPL 2019, an angry Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Virat Kohli came down heavily S Ravi on after the final delivery of the match bowled by Mumbai Indians’ pacer Lasith Malinga turned out to be a ‘no-ball’, which was not awarded to the losing team.

More importantly, winning captain Rohit Sharma was also critical of the umpiring standards during the match.

“We are playing at the IPL level. It’s not a domestic level match and the umpires should be focused and most importantly keep their eyes open. That was an unbelievable no-ball which was not given said the furious Kohli in after the match scenes.

Incidentally, Ravi was the sole Indian umpire in ICC’s Elite Panel some time past and as is Menon now.

Kings XI Punjab has appealed against the short-run call.

“We have appealed to the match referee. While a person’s error can happen and that we understand that, there’s no room for human errors just like these during a world-class tournament like the IPL. This one run could cost us a playoff berth,” KXIP CEO Satish Menon told PTI.

By Salem Bin Amer

Engineer, Badminton player, Fitness enthusiast and a full-time Content writer.

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