The balanced pitch in Raipur provided a nail-biting affair between Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Mumbai Indians (MI) on May 10. The winner was decided off the last ball of the innings and there were plenty twisters and terns in slog overs of RCB’s run chase. Krunal Pandya played a match-wining knock of 73. But, before falling in the 18th over, his catch was dropped at boundary which led to an animated chat between Tilak Varma and Naman Dhir. Krunal went for a big shot and Dhir caught it at wide long-on boundary. As he was tripping over, he tried to lob the ball to Varma but was slightly off target. It led to a heated altercation between the two which was eventually solved once Varma took a similar catch to dismiss Krunal in the same over.
Former India left-arm spinner Murali Kartik was not happy seeing the two having an argument on the boundary. While Krunal could not take a single as he was facing cramps, Kartik wanted one of the two to just return the ball to the bowler.
“It's a tough one for say. For us to speculate from afar is not the right thing. Even if you are a commentator and are on the ground, you don't know what exactly is happening. Sometimes with big teams, when things aren't going well, the easiest target is something like this. But one thing did upset me,” said Kartik on Cricbuzz.
“You spoke about the catch that Naman Dhir should have taken, just that interaction at that point in time. It wasn't needed, yes, they didn't take a single. They didn't take a run because Krunal was cramping at that time. But you don't need a fight in the middle or a bit of an altercation or argument. As Naman Dhir suggested, you should be throwing the ball. I don't know whether that's reflective of anything, but that is something that shouldn't have happened,” he added.
Naman didn’t take the catch but saved six runs for his team. But, Krunal rubbed salt on MI’s wounds with two sixes off next three balls. On the last ball, he was caught on the boundary by Varma. He went outside the boundary after lobbing the ball in the air and then completed the catch. Varma and Dhir shared high-fives after the catch was taken.
‘I don’t want to see what I saw today’
Kartik also talked about rumours of rift inside the dressing room. The cricketer-turned-commentator said that arguments like these is something he does not want to see on the field.
“Yes, there have been a million murmurs going around. Yes, there are things which haven't happened, and yes, the last three years haven't gone the way MI would have wanted. But for me, I didn't want to see what I saw today. All of us are pretty intense on the ground, but at the time, where common sense and cricket smarts need to take over,” said the 49-year-old.
“At a crucial stage, you don't want two people to have an argument at the end of the boundary rope. You don't want to see that," he added.
MI out of playoffs race
MI ended up losing the game by two wickets. This was their eighth defeat of the season, knocking the five-time IPL champions out of playoffs race.