On Wednesday, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) edged past Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in a close match at the MA Chidambaram Stadium. The Hyderabad-based franchise ended up losing the game by six runs.
Earlier in the day, RCB posted a decent 149/8 in their allotted 20 overs. The David Warner-led franchise were set for a win before the left-arm spinner Shahbaz Ahmed shattered their hopes by raiding their ranks and picking up three crucial wickets in quick succession.
Manish Pandey, Jonny Bairstow, and Abdul Samad were the three batsmen trapped by Ahmed.
However, still clinging to their hopes, the SRH franchise came as close as needing 34 runs off the final three overs. Virat Kohli gave the responsibility of restricting SRH to his new pacer Harshal Patel. In order to take wickets, Patel bowled two full-tosses, one in the 18th over to Jason Holder and the other to Rashid Khan in the final over.
This made Warner furious as he expected the umpire to warn the bowler in the first instance and bar him from bowling in the second one. The rules, changed in 2017, read that a bowler will be barred from bowling after receiving two warnings from the umpires for bowling two waist-high full tosses or beamers in the same match.
Though the umpire signalled them as no-balls but didn’t issue any warning. In the virtual post-match conference, the SRH coach Trevor Bayliss clarified that the umpires were right in their decision as the first ball wasn’t directed at the batsman’s body. He clarified that the SRH skipper was already a little animated with them losing the match, due to which he expressed his vexation at this incident.
“He was a little animated because we weren’t playing very good cricket and we lost. I think the umpires got it right. There was a bit of conjecture over obviously the second high no-ball, but the first one was not directed at the batter’s body, so that wasn’t a warning. So I think the umpires got that one right,” Bayliss said.
SRH lost the second match by six runs, making them the first team in IPL 2021 to lose both their matches.
