Kohli blasts match referee over no ball gaffe: Report

Bengaluru: A livid Virat Kohli on Thursday stormed into the match referee’s room and hurled abuses at him following Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) home defeat against Mumbai Indians (MI) in the Indian Premier League (IPL), which was marred by a glaring umpiring blooper that cost RCB dear, reports said.

According to a Times Now report, right after the presentation ceremony, a furious Kohli barged into match referee Manu Nayyar’s room and used abusive language to let his displeasure known.

As per the report, Kohli even told the match referee that he didn’t care if he was penalised for violating the code of conduct.

Needing 41 runs from 4 overs, RCB looked to be cruising against MI at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru before Jasprit Bumrah and Lasith Malinga tightened the screws on the home team and won the game for MI by 6 runs.

But the game will be remembered for umpire S. Ravi’s failure to spot a no-ball off the final delivery of the match. With RCB needing six runs from the last ball to tie the game, Lasith Malinga bowled a dot ball, but replays showed it should have been a no-ball as he overstepped.

RCB skipper Virat Kohli made his displeasure known at the end of the game, saying that the teams were not playing club cricket and the officials needed to be more careful.

During the presentation ceremony, Kohli said: “We are playing at the IPL level and not playing club cricket. The umpires should have had their eyes open. That is a ridiculous call (last ball). If it is a game of margins, I don’t know what is happening. They should have been more sharp and careful out there.”

MI skipper Rohit Sharma too backed Kohli and said that these mistakes shouldn’t happen as they were game changers.

“I just got to know when we crossed the rope. Somebody told me it was a no ball. These kind of mistakes are not good for the game of cricket, it’s pretty simple. In the over before that, Bumrah bowled a ball which wasn’t a wide. Those are game changers. There’s a TV up there, they have to watch what’s happening. It is as simple as that.

“Players can’t do much. The only thing they can do is walk off and shake hands because it was the last ball. It’s disappointing to see that. I hope they rectify their mistakes like we do when we make mistakes,” Sharma rued.

Speaking to IANS, a senior official of the Board of Control for Cricket in India said the howler in Thursday’s match was waiting to happen since there have been no proper assessment and judgement.

“What you saw (yesterday) was a symptom and not the disease. It has been two years since the Umpires’ Committee functioned. The process that was followed earlier was that the umpires were assessed during the year by a panel of former umpires who were on the Umpires’ Committee.

“The committee members were also free to visit and see the assessment being done. All of that went out of the window once the Committee of Administrators (CoA) moved in lock, stock and barrel. Mistakes happened then too, but there was a system because of which the umpires were apprehensive since they were being judged,” the official said.

Published on: Mar 29, 2019 at 16:28 IST

IANS