Rajasthan Royals breached Chennai Super Kings' fortress at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Wednesday when they handed a 3-run defeat to the home team. Despite losing the toss, RR went on to win the match and it was their off-spinning all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin that played a pivolta role in the team's victory.
With the bat, Ashwin first scored 30 off 22 balls before returning with exceptional figures of 2 for 25 with in his quota of 4 overs while defending 175. A great evening with the bat and ball meant that Ashwin was declared the Player of the Match. However, the veteran Indian cricketer landed himself in a bit of a trouble after he criticised some of the umpiring calls related to ball change during the CSK vs RR match.
"Ashwin admitted to the Level 1 Offence under Article 2.7 of the IPL's Code of Conduct. For Level 1 breaches of the Code of Conduct, the Match Referee's decision is final and binding," the BCCI said in the release.
Notably, Ashwin had said that there should be some consistency in this rule going forward as he had not asked the umpire to change the ball but it was done as per the umpire's call.
"I'm quite surprised the umpires changed the ball for dew on their own. It's never happened before and I'm quite surprised. Some of the decisions in this year's IPL on the field have left me a little flummoxed to be honest," Ashwin had said at the post-match press conference.
"I mean, (it) left me flummoxed in a good or a bad way. It's because I think what you need is a little bit of balance," the 36-year-old who came into bat at the number 5 position in this match, said.
"As a bowling team, we are not asking for the ball to be changed. But the ball was changed on the umpires' accord. I did ask the umpire and he said we can change it.
"So I just hope every time there is dew they can change it every single time going forward in this IPL that sort of, you can do whatever you want, but you just need to be in a standard going forward," he stated.