Was the third ball of the final over a waist-high full-toss that ought to have been called a no-ball? Perhaps.
Would such a ruling, which would have given Rovman Powell the licence to have a no-consequence full swing at the free-hit ball, have altered the outcome of the contest? Possibly so.
Did that justify Rishabh Pant and Delhi Capitals’ immature, childish, puerile behaviour which saw an assistant coach, a former India player no less, stride out to the park to confront the umpires? Definitely not.
Pravin Amre of Delhi Capitals talks with the umpire after the no-ball controversy. Image: Sportzpics for IPL
The Wankhede Stadium provided the stage on Friday night for another classic that seems pretty much the norm in Season 15 of the IPL. A wicket-maiden by Rajasthan Royals paceman Prasidh Krishna in the 19th over had left Powell with the near-impossible task of smashing 36 in the final over, to be bowled by Obed McCoy, to haul his team over the line in a massively high-scoring contest.
Powell was up for the challenge, tonking his fellow West Indian for towering sixes off the first two deliveries. The third was a full-toss outside off, dismissed over mid-wicket with impunity by the remarkably powerful Powell. 18 needed off three balls, so far so good.
No sooner had the ball whistled off Powell’s bat than the batter whirled towards the square-leg umpire to see if his arm had shot up parallel to the ground, indicating a no-ball. There was no such signal. If Powell was disappointed, his captain and coaches in the Delhi dugout were incensed. Pant, touted as a future India skipper, was up on his feet, angrily gesticulating and eventually seeming to call his batsmen back in, in protest at the perceived injustice. Had Powell and Kuldeep Yadav walked off, it would have been tantamount to a forfeiture.
Pant wasn’t the only one riled by the no-ball that wasn’t. There was widespread angst within the Delhi camp, with arms thrown wide in affected or genuine exasperation. The generally affable Pant might have felt the steam come out of his ears, but there seemed to be a paucity of a strong, mature voice from the support staff to cool the furious captain down. Eventually, after exhortations from assistant coach Shane Watson and bowling coach James Hopes, Pant relented and chose not to insist that his batters leave the field, though he did urge Pravin Amre, the former Indian batsman, to enter the field and have a word with Nitin Menon, one of the standing umpires.
Astonishingly, Amre did his captain’s bidding when he should have known better. As he admitted later, Pant had allowed the heat of the moment to get to him. Amre, far older and therefore potentially much wiser, had no business transgressing the field of play and openly questioning the decision-making of the men in the white coats.
Delhi’s reaction to the non-no-ball was wrong on so many counts. For starters, it made sure that no matter who wins Season 15 of the IPL, the Fairplay Trophy will not be headed towards the national capital. Unquestionably, this was a flagrant violation of the spirit of the game and an open attempt at undermining the authority of the umpires. Hopefully, the officials concerned will swing into action and mete out commensurate punishment to ensure that the ethos and integrity of the sport are maintained.
What the break in play did was also bring to a shuddering halt the momentum Powell had so sensationally wrested from Rajasthan, and the blubbering McCoy specifically. With each passing six in the final over, the big left-arm seamer visibly wilted. There is no gainsaying what he would have served up had there been no time to regroup, no breathing space to escape the gnawing gremlins of self-doubt beginning to overwhelm him. As it turned out, Delhi were hoist with their own petard.
Pant’s anger and Amre’s incursion into the field of play brought back memories of Chennai Super Kings captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni uncharacteristically storming out to the middle during IPL 2019 to protest what he felt was a similar mistake by the umpires. Interestingly, on that occasion too, the contentious decision revolved around a waist-high full-toss from Ben Stokes, also in the final over of the contest. Even more intriguingly, CSK’s opponents were – you guessed right – Rajasthan Royals. So much for history repeating itself, even if this was the kind of encore the sport could well have done without.
For all his hero-worship of his illustrious predecessor, Pant will feel when he has sufficiently calmed down that this is one Dhoni act he’d rather not have emulated. How, or whether, this affects his India captaincy/vice-captaincy credentials won’t be known until later, though he at least has the impetuosity of youth on his side – a luxury Dhoni didn’t have three years back, or the 53-year-old Amre doesn’t now.
It’s unlikely that such ugly scenes would have been witnessed had head coach Ricky Ponting been present in the Delhi dugout. With a family member having tested Covid positive, the former Australian captain has gone into voluntary self-isolation for five days. For all his reputation as a stormy petrel at the start of his international career, Ponting has metamorphosed into a wise and level-headed individual, and his stature would have been enough to dissuade Pant from lapsing into the drastically dramatic.
Moving aside from this reprehensible behaviour for a second. The Laws/Playing Conditions have no provision for the umpires to refer a waist-high full-toss to their television colleague unless a batsman has been dismissed. How silly is that? Precious seconds are wasted in far sillier decision-making. The time is nigh for common sense to be employed at every possible opportunity because as it is, cricket is so mired in pseudo-tradition while paying lip service to embracing the modern.
It’s a carping shame that the final few unsavoury moments took the sheen away from what was otherwise a gripping if uneven contest between bat and ball. Jos Buttler’s third hundred of the season, wonderful spin bowling from R Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal and Powell’s brave-heart late assault have all been relegated to footnotes. How’s that a good thing so far as the sport is concerned? Won’t we be better off extricating our heads from the sand and ensuring we don’t miss the wood for the trees?
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