Comebacks in cricket can either be storybook moments or chapters best left unread — just ask Kolkata Knight Riders’ pacer Anrich Nortje. Making his much-anticipated return to IPL 2025, Nortje would have hoped for a fairytale debut in purple and gold. Instead, it turned into a night he’d likely want to forget, marred by Kolkata’s shock defeat and a rare on-field controversy involving his bat.
It all began with a rather unusual sight: Nortje’s bat being checked by the on-field umpires and subsequently deemed invalid. As if returning from injury and walking in under pressure wasn’t enough, the South African pacer was caught amid a bat gauge test drama — a moment that’s suddenly become commonplace in IPL 2025.
Interestingly, Nortje wasn’t the first KKR player on the night to face this unusual scrutiny. Earlier in the innings, Sunil Narine, who opened the batting for KKR, had his bat rejected as well. As he prepared to walk out, reserve umpire Saiyed Khalid was seen checking his bat near the dugout, accompanied by teammate Angkrish Raghuvanshi.
Sunil Narine bat doesn’t pass umpire’s check#IPL2025
pic.twitter.com/d2VISP3gnd— Zsports (@_Zsports) April 16, 2025
The gauge test, which assesses the legality of a bat based on its dimensions, found that the thickest part of Narine’s bat didn’t pass through. He was promptly asked to swap it for a compliant one. Later in the 16th over, Nortje came in for his first appearance of the season, but once again, the bat check proved troublesome.
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This time, on-field umpires Mohit Krishnadas and Saidharshan Kumar stepped in. Nortje’s bat too failed the gauge test, and Rahmanullah Gurbaz ran out with replacements. But fate had other plans — Nortje didn’t even face a ball. On the very next delivery, Andre Russell fell to Marco Jansen, sealing Punjab Kings’ record-setting 16-run win after defending a meager 112, the lowest total ever successfully defended in IPL history.
BCCI now does bat checks on the field instead of in the dressing room. So if you’re wondering why umpires are checking bats or noticed Anrich Nortje changing his bat today, it means his bat did not meet the size rules.#IPL2025 #BCCI @IPL @BCCI pic.twitter.com/k3PVWRWO39
— Sai (@sai_whispers) April 15, 2025
As for the rules, ICC regulations stipulate that a bat’s face width must not exceed 10.79 cm, the blade thickness should be under 6.7 cm, and edge thickness must stay below 4 cm. The total length should also remain within 96.4 cm. It appears both Narine and Nortje’s original bats breached these limits.
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While bat checks have always been part of the protocol, they were usually done behind closed doors in the dressing room. But this season, the IPL has brought them into full public view, as seen during the DC vs MI and RR vs RCB matches, adding another layer of theatre to an already high-stakes tournament. For KKR and Nortje, however, the drama was anything but entertaining.
