BANGALORE – Royal Challengers Bangalore team Captain, Virat Kohli has condemned the poor level of umpiring in the IPL. Taking a dig at ICC Elite Panel Umpire, S Ravi, Kohli said that no one could expect this type of poor performance by umpires in the high-level IPL games. He said that we are playing at the IPL level and it is not a club cricket. RCB captain, Virat Kohli lashed out at S Ravi for his inability to notice “no ball” on the last ball between a close match between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians. MI captain, Rohit Sharma also joined Virat Kohli and raised questions over “no ball” controversy in the match.
In a post-match conference, Virat Kohli said IPL games have close margins and such type of blunder mistakes could cost any team a match. The topic amplified because the last ball bowled out by Lasith Malinga was a big no-ball and still, the umpire S Ravi could not be able to see it. RCB needed 7 runs off 1 ball and Malinga bowled the last ball of the match a full toss which went for 1 run. The umpire didn’t notice the long no-ball which was clearly visible on the screen. Had it been a no ball, AB Devillers who got on strike could have left with 5 runs to score off 1 ball. Also, a free hit would have been there which could change the result of the match.
Rohit Sharma also criticized the mistake which umpire S Ravi committed and expressed his concerns about the umpiring in the match. In the first innings, MI put a total of over 180 runs on the board but it was not considered a safe total to defend. But MI bowlers did well to defend this total and played a crucial role in the win of their team. Virat Kohli accepted that they should have stopped Mumbai Indians to a lesser total as they had managed to dominate in the game after the fall of seven wickets of MI. However, the last few overs went in favor of MI due to blasting batting of Hardik Pandya which helped MI to set a defendable total on the board.
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