The Delhi Ranji Team Under the captaincy of the young Nitish Rana is in a commanding position in their opening match of the 2018-19 Ranji Trophy against Himachal Pradesh at Feroz Shah Kotla in New Delhi. After scoring 317, the hosts bowled their opponents out for 223 and therefore garnered a lead of 96 runs. They also have dominated in the second innings. However, luck hasn’t favored one of their veteran players in Gautam Gambhir.
Gambhir scored 44 and 49 runs in both the innings and missed out on notching a couple of well-deserved centuries on both the instances. Left-arm spinner Mayank Dagar nipped him out in the first innings. He had sufficient chance to score a fifty in the second innings, but unfortunately, the experienced campaigner was caught short of his crease one run shy of the milestone.
The incident occurred in the first ball of the 20th over. Fast bowler Rishi Dhawan bowled a full-length delivery and right-handed batsman Hiten Dalal turned the ball on to the leg side and raced off to complete two runs. The fielder at mid-wicket chased down the red cherry by making a diving stop. However, he didn’t take much time in releasing the ball, sitting on one knee.
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Another fieldsman ran in from the deep, but he didn’t have to collect the ball. The throw came in at the bowler’s end where Gambhir was heading. Dhawan wasn’t behind the stumps but made sure that he took the bails off as soon as the throw came in. Gautam’s effort to complete the run was a bit on the lazy side and hence he snuck his bat through pretty casually and Dhawan made an appeal.
Here is the video of the incident:
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The decision went upstairs where third umpire Abhijit Deshmukh had to make a tough tricky call. In replays, it was evident that Replays showed that Gambhir’s bat was on the line. The TV umpire had a close look at it for quite a while and eventually decided to ask Gautam to leave the field. He had to make the long walk back and quite expectantly, Dhawan and Himachal Pradesh were ecstatic.
