An incident from Friday’s Premier League game triggered debates and controversy as PBKS skipper KL Rahul got a reprieve from the third umpire when it seemed that the batter was out caught by KKR fielder Rahul Tripathi.
The incident is from the third ball of the 19th over in PBKS’ run-chase versus KKR. With the game delicately poised, Rahul hit the Riders pacer Shivam Mavi into the deep, where Tripathi made an excellent forward dive and seemed to have completed the catch.
But while Tripathi and the rest of the KKR fielders started celebrating, the umpires were mindful of the doubt involved and sent the matter upstairs for greater verification.
Third umpire Anil Dandekar then checked the catch from various zoomed-in angles and gave the decision in Rahul’s favour, allowing him to resume his innings when KKR were desperate for a breakthrough.
As is often the case with such catches, Tripathi’s grab and third umpire’s decision sparked debates. While one section of fans and experts felt he had his fingers underneath, others thought the ball did contact the turf at some stage.
The latter is what the TV umpire also came to the conclusion of, as he himself stated on the broadcast, and gave the decision ‘not out’.
However, the KKR captain Eoin Morgan said it looked out in “real-time” when he saw Tripathi make his dive and get up in a split of a second. But the captain also chose not to sound critical of the TV umpire’s call and said “we need to get on with it.”
“I thought in real-time it was out (referring to the Rahul catch in the 19th over).
Obviously, when you slow things down and analyse that the third umpire thought otherwise and his decision is made, that’s final and we need to get on with it.
But it would have been nice if we had got that wicket,”
Morgan said at the post-match presentation, as quoted by Cricbuzz.
Rahul, who had anchored the PBKS’ chase, was batting on 62 at the time of the Tripathi catch incident. Before being dismissed, he added five more runs to his innings and propelled his team past KKR’s less than ideal 165/7.
