India played their first game of the five-match T20I series against New Zealand at Eden Park in Auckland on Friday, where they successfully defeated the hosts by six wickets.
Virat Kohli won the toss and opted to bowl first. Kiwi batsmen made full use of the short boundaries and posted a massive score of 203-5 in 20 overs.
During the New Zealand innings, an incident occurred which caught everyone’s attention except the umpires on the field. It all happened in the 20th over of the innings when Jasprit Bumrah bowled a short delivery to Ross Taylor, who played it at mid-wicket.
Manish Pandey, who was positioned at deep mid-wicket, ran quickly to grab the ball in order to stop the batsmen from taking the second run, however, he missed to collect the ball. But then he tried to bluff the batsmen with an imaginary throw, which clearly goes against the ‘fake fielding’ law.
As per the law, if a player attempts a fake fielding deliberately to disturb the batsmen, then the fielding team will be penalized five runs. However, in this case, the on-field umpires missed to catch Pandey’s actions and, therefore, didn’t punish India.
Here’s the video:
Should that be 5 penalty runs for fake fielding? #NZvIND pic.twitter.com/X6LZ1CPZ3h
— Michael Wagener (@Mykuhl) January 24, 2020
I guess umpires have failed to notice Manish Pandey's fake throw before overthrows in final over.
5 runs might make a difference. #AskStar #NZvsIND
— Prashanth Relangi (@prashirelangi) January 24, 2020
That fake fielding by Manish Pandey can be penalized !#IndvNZ #INDvsNZ #NZvIND #NZvsIND
— Charlie Joe (@CharlieJoe4) January 24, 2020
In the match, the ‘Men in Blue’ got the target of 204. The visitors had a terrible start as they lost Rohit Sharma on just 16 runs. However, opener KL Rahul and skipper Kohli stitched a 99-run partnership to take the side out of early trouble.
Then, the Blackcaps’ bowlers bounced back and took three wickets in quick successions to come on the top of Indian batters. But, India’s middle-order batsman Shreyas Iyer had some other plans.
Iyer played a vital knock of unbeaten 58 runs to take his team over the line with six balls to spare. Without any surprises, the Mumbai-born was gratified with the ‘Player of the Match’ award.
It’s in the bag! 👏👏@ShreyasIyer15's 5⃣8⃣*, @klrahul11's 5⃣6⃣ and @imVkohli's 4⃣5⃣ take #TeamIndia home. #NZvIND pic.twitter.com/B0nqmWiqMr
— BCCI (@BCCI) January 24, 2020
Team India will next face the Kane Williamson-led side on Sunday (Jan 26) at the same ground.
