Former Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir has slammed the third umpire, Anil Dandekar for disallowing Rahul Tripathi's athletic catch against Punjab Kings (PBKS) on October 1. The incident occurred after Punjab's captain, KL Rahul miscued the pull shot and Rahul Tripathi dived towards forward to take a stunner.
The on-field umpire wasn’t sure whether it was a clean catch or not. Dandekar referred it to third umpire to check whether Tripathi’s fingers were underneath the ball or the ball has bounced. However, the third umpire’s verdict shocked the entire KKR team, especially the bowler Shivam Mavi and fielder Tripathi. They were definitely unhappy with the verdict, as it appeared that Tripathi had his fingertips underneath the ball in the replay.
Gambhir reacted to the controversial decision saying that shocking decisions like these are not expected in IPL.
“That was a shocker, this can end someone’s campaign. He shouldn’t have seen the replay more than once, it just looked out. Even if they had got KL Rahul out, things would have been different. We cannot have these kinds of shockers in the IPL,” the former KKR skipper was quoted on Star Sports.
Former England cricketer Graeme Swann also slammed the third umpire's decision. “That was the worst piece of third umpiring I have ever seen,” Swann said on the same show.
Impact of the decision
KL Rahul was batting on 62 when the catch was dropped. He added five more runs to his including a boundary off the penultimate over. He got out of the second delivery of the final over when PBKS needed four more runs to win the match. Had the umpire’s decision been in KKR’s favour, new batter Fabian Allen would have come in earlier when they needed 11 runs to win from nine deliveries. Considering the way Venkatesh Iyer bowled the last over, the game could have gone either way.
“That was a shocker, this can end someone’s campaign. He shouldn’t have seen the replay more than once, it just looked out. Even if they had got KL Rahul out, things would have been different. We cannot have these kinds of shockers in the IPL,” Gambhir further added.
Morgan’s disappointment
KKR skipper, Eoin Morgan felt that it was a clean catch and Rahul should have been signalled ‘out'. “I thought in real-time that the Tripathi catch was out. But when you slow it down, the third umpire decides otherwise. We got on with it once he made his call,” Morgan said after the defeat.
PBKS and KKR will now face Royal Challengers Bangalore and Sunrisers Hyderabad respectively in their next encounter on Sunday’s double header.
