Ranji Trophy 2019-20: Murali Vijay Fined 10% Match Fee For Showing Dissent

The incident happened before tea on day 1 when Ashwin and Co made a caught behind appeal against Pavan Deshpande but it was shot down by umpire Nitin Pandit

Out-of-favour India opener Murali Vijay was on Monday fined 10 per cent of his match fee for expressing dissent over an on-field decision by the umpires on the opening day of the Ranji Trophy match between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka here. The incident happened just two balls before tea in the 70th over when Ravichandran Ashwin and Co vociferously made a caught behind appeal against Pavan Deshpande but it was shot down by umpire Nitin Pandit. Disappointed with the decision, Ashwin and the rest of his teammates surrounded the pitch before umpire Pandit walked up to the ace spinner to have a chat. The square leg umpire Anil Dandekar, on the other hand, was trying to calm down an upset Vijay by holding his hand. The TN team management later said that Vijay has been fined 10 per cent of his match fee. There were many decisions which went against Tamil Nadu, leaving the players, including Ashwin, keeper N Jagadeesan and Vijay, aggrieved during the match. In the match, Karnataka reached 259/6 at stumps after electing to bat with Devdutt Padikkal (78) and Pavan Deshpande (65) being the top performers for the visitors. For the hosts, debutant left-arm spinner M Siddharth snapped two wickets, while Ashwin, K Vignesh and B Aparajith took one wicket each.