The domestic tournament of India, the Ranji Trophy, is in its knockout stages. Vidarbha earlier defeated Kerala to progress to the finals. On the other hand Karnataka and Saurashtra are fighting for the final spot.
The semifinal game is being played at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore. Now the game has been marred with controversy lately.
It was the second day of the game. Indian Test specialist and Saurashtra’s batsman Cheteshwar Pujara refused to walk despite nicking the ball.
The incident happened during the 23rd over of Saurashtra’s innings. At that time Pujara was batting on only 1 run. The pitch was assisting the pacers. As a result pacer Abhimanyu Mithun was having a gala time.
Mithun came steaming in as Pujara got into his strides. The ball was pitched just short of good length area. As usual Pujara prodded forward to defend. But the ball moved just enough and even bounced to surprise Pujara.
While moving past the batsman, the ball took the edge of the bat and the wicketkeeper caught it. As a result Karnataka started celebrating wildly as they knew that Pujara’s wicket was a huge one.
However they were unaware of the proceedings on the other side. The umpire didn’t raise his finger. Even Pujara stood his ground and refused to walk.
More Articles Related To Cricket:
Pandey and Nair were clearly angry
The entire Karnataka team was surprised with the umpire’s decision. As a result they started questioning aggressively as the edge was huge and it was clearly heard.
Players like Manish Pandey and Karun Nair were clearly furious with the decision. They were even surprised to see Pujara, a player of his stature, didn’t walk. They even questioned the batsman, but he remained unmoved and got ready to face the next delivery.
Pujara continued to bat and at the end of the day, he in unbeaten on 28 off 80 balls. Saurashtra is well set on 137/3 in response to Karnataka’s first innings score of 275. The visitors have a good depth in their batting lineup. As a result they are definitely the favourites to take the lead and boss the game.