When England openers Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett come out to bat, the visitors will start their innings at 5/0. The reason behind the five penalty runs is Ravichandran Ashwin’s mistake in the first session of Day 2. The Indian all-rounder was warned a few times by on-field umpire Joel Wilson to not run in the middle of the pitch. As a result, Wilson in the 102nd over of the innings signalled five penalty runs.
Ashwin walked up to umpire Wilson to have a word with him. However, the umpire had made up his mind and did not pay heed to Ashwin’s argument.
Here's what MCC’s law 41.14.1 under the Unfair Play section says
It is unfair to cause deliberate or avoidable damage to the pitch. If the striker enters the protected area in playing or playing at the ball, he/she must move from it immediately thereafter. A batter will be deemed to be causing avoidable damage if either umpire considers that his/her presence on the pitch is without reasonable cause.
Indian batters need to be careful
The law further gives umpires the power to award more five-run penalties if any other batter from the side repeats the offense.
“If there is any further instance of deliberate or avoidable damage to the pitch by any batter in that innings, the umpire seeing the contravention shall, when the ball is dead, inform the other umpire of the occurrence.
The bowler's end umpire shall disallow all runs to the batting side return any not out batter to his/her original end, signal no ball or wide to the scorers if applicable, award 5 penalty runs to the fielding side.”
Earlier, Ravindra Jadeja was warned by the umpires on Day 1 of the third Test.
England dominate first session
Starting at an overnight score of 326/5, India lost the wicket of nightwatchman Kuldeep Yadav early. He edged one off James Anderson. The southpaw scored four runs from 24 balls. In the next over, Jadeja was caught and bowled by Joe Root. The all-rounder scored 112 runs from 225 balls. His knock featured nine fours and a couple of sixes. Ashwin and debutant Dhruv Jurel ensured that no more wickets fell in the first session. At the end of the first session, India were 388/7.
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