Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians played a thriller at M Chinnaswamy Stadium last night, where Rohit Sharma-led team came victorious by just six runs. The match was filled with a lot of drama, where the momentum was shifting in every over. The most decisive moment came when Lasith Malinga bowled a perfect ball to prevent Shivam Dube hitting hard when the equations were down to 7 runs off 1 ball. The on-field umpire S Ravi failed to spot that Malinga overstepped while bowling that ball.
This mistake evoked the anger among the fans and everyone started raising questions on the level of umpiring in the world’s biggest T20 league. Meanwhile, a senior official from IPL’s official broadcaster told IANS that umpire Ravi wasn’t even looking at the lading point of bowler’s front-foot.
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The official went through the footage of that particular ball several times and he revealed Ravi was looking at the batsman when Malinga released the ball.
“Having gone through the slow-motion replay of the match feed, I can tell you for certain that Ravi wasn’t even looking at the front foot of the bowler. He was already looking at the batsman,” the official said.
Reacting to the same incident, a senior BCCI official mentioned that checking the legality of the ball is in practice by Indian umpires these days.
“The old habit of first looking at the bowler’s foot at the point of delivery and then looking towards the batsman is being ignored by most Indian umpires these days. They just look at the line where the ball is pitching and take it from there. If a batsman is dismissed, they go up to the third umpire and check for the no-ball,” the executive told IANS.
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He went on to mention that the governing body will take this case with utmost seriousness and this mistake will come into account when umpire evaluation is done at the end of the group stage.
“Team IPL has noted the matter and this will definitely be taken into consideration when the evaluation is done at the end of the group phase. It won’t be too surprising if Ravi loses out on matches in the playoffs,” the functionary said.
Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli were heard disappointed with this umpiring howler at this level. Both captains expressed their displeasure for this incident during the post-match presentation.
