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RR IPL game fracas: DC skipper Pant fined, asst coach Amre fined and docked a game
Skipper Rishabh Pant will lose entire match fee like Amre, who has also been suspended for a game after entering the field to protest the umpires not calling a waist-high no-ball.
The Delhi Capitals team management that was at the centre of the final over controversy in Friday’s match against Rajasthan Royals has been found guilty under different levels of IPL’s Code of Conduct rules. (Follow IPL 2022 Coverage)
Skipper Rishabh Pant, who sent assistant coach Pravin Amre on to the field to remonstrate with the umpires after a full toss was not deemed waist high and ruled a no-ball, was fined his entire match fee. Amre has been suspended for a match besides being docked his entire match fee.
DC all-rounder Shardul Thakur, who was seen gesticulating to protest the umpire not calling a no-ball has been fined 50 percent of his match fee. The three have accepted the sanctions.
Chasing a target of 223 at the Wankhede Stadium, DC needed 36 runs in the 20th over. Rovman Powell hit the first three deliveries of Obed McCoy for six, including the last one, a contentious high full toss. If the umpires had called appeared a marginal no-ball, it would have left DC to get 18 runs in four balls, including a free-hit.
Nitin Menon, the umpire at the bowler’s end, consulted square-leg official Nikhil Patwardhan before ruling that it was a fair delivery. “Everyone was frustrated that it (no-ball) was not even close, everyone in the ground saw that. I think the third umpire should have interfered and said it was a no-ball,” Pant said at the post-match presentation.
The DC captain was unaware that rules don’t permit the umpire to review a waist high no-ball decision unless a wicket falls from that delivery. The dugout was missing the experience of head coach Ricky Ponting, who is in quarantine for being a Covid close contact.
Assistant coach Shane Watson was seen trying to stop Pant’s protests but the skipper still sent Amre on to the field to confront the umpires. “It was very disappointing what happened in that last over,” Watson told reporters. “Unfortunately, we were in that position in the game where we were not able to put things together long enough throughout that game. And look, in the end, we at the Delhi Capitals don’t stand for what happened. The umpire's decision, whether it’s right or wrong, we’ve to accept it. And someone running on to the field is... we can’t accept, and well, it’s not good enough.”
Watson said the break played into the hands of Royals with left-arm pacer McCoy getting “time to regroup”. The next delivery, fourth of the over, was a dot ball and RR won by 15 runs.
Amre’s is the second instance in IPL where someone has walked from the dugout on to the field to try and get the umpire to change his decision. In 2019, Chennai Super Kings skipper MS Dhoni walked on to talk to the on-field umpires after the official at the bowler’s end reversed a waist-high no-ball call, after getting a signal from the square-leg umpire. Incidentally, that was also a tense run chase against RR with CSK eventually going on to win. Dhoni then was let-off with a fine of 50 percent match-fee.
The dramatic events in the final over also raised a debate over the rule book that disallows the umpires from taking the TV umpire’s help for such marginal calls. “So, umpires check no-balls for front foot every ball, but can’t check a high full toss? Makes sense…” Royal Challengers Bangalore’s Glenn Maxwell tweeted.
