Moving on from the humiliating loss against New Zealand in Wellington, India bounced back terrifically during the 2nd T20I in Auckland on Friday. The Indian bowling attack looked extremely sharpened as the Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Krunal Pandya managed to get rid of the top four Kiwi batters within 8 overs. Especially, the elder Pandya whose 3-for throttled the Kiwi top-order.
However, a fault from the umpire’s end sparked a new controversy in the middle of the game.
The incident happened on the last ball of the sixth over when batsman Daryl Mitchell was given LBW out off Krunal Pandya’s length delivery. The ball came back directly to struck Mitchell’s pad as the on-field umpire raised his finger. Disagreeing to the decision, the batsman reviewed the decision as he knew that he had edged the ball.
While third umpire Shaun Haig had a look on the replay, the hot-spot showed a mark of the ball on the ball but the Snickometer didn’t show any deflection while the ball was passing by his bat. Following the same, Haig gave him out which left the Mitchell and his partner Kane Willaimson shocked.
Here’s the video:
The situation became a little animated when former captain and wicketkeeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni had a word with Williamson and the umpire in the presence of captain Rohit Sharma. But in the end, the on-field umpires went by the rule book and Mitchell had to make his way back to the dugout.
Here’s the video:
The only way Mitchell could have survived was if Rohit had called him back after replays on the big screen made it clear that there was an inside edge before the ball hit the batsman's pads. But the Kiwis, bestowed the spirit of the game award by the ICC quite often, had to accept the controversial call.