Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) faced off against each other in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) season on Monday, May 2. Although it was a comfortable seven-wicket win for the Knight Riders in the end after brilliant batting by Rinku Singh and Nitish Rana, the game was a closely-fought affair. At the same time, the umpiring came under the scanner once again with RR skipper Sanju Samson losing his cool over one of the wide calls.
The incident took place in the 19th over of the KKR innings with a match edging towards a close finish. At this moment, umpire Nitin Pandit made a wide call which was debatable. Being bowled by former KKR pacer Prasidh Krishna, the fourth ball of the over was a short ball that was signalled wide, leaving Samson furious. He protested the call with a DRS signal that made his disappointment clear for all to see.
The drama didn’t end there, however, as the final ball of the over was also called wide which led to the RR skipper walking up to the umpire and discussing the matter with him. This time around, Rana had shuffled a lot in his crease and the bowler, Prasidh Krishna, just followed the batter to eventually beat him with a wide yorker. The ball passed Rana’s bat very closely but the umpire called it a wide which frustrated Samson further.
The Royals went on to lose their second match on the trot. They could muster only 152 runs batting first with Sanju Samson scoring a half-century and then Shimron Hetmyer applying the finishing touches with an unbeaten 27* off 13 balls. In response, after an initial stumble, KKR skipper Shreyas Iyer played a cameo but the real hero was Rinku, who played an effective knock of 42* off 23 balls as he was ably supported by Nitish Rana's unbeaten 48* to take the team home in the final over of the game.
