India vs South Africa | “Archaic rules” send Indian players to lunch TWO runs away from victory

SportsCafe Desk

BySportsCafe Desk, SportsCafe Editor

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Some farce ensued at the Supersport Park in Centurion after the umpires decided to take the lunch break when India were just two runs away from taking a 2-0 lead in the series. Although Virat Kohli and the South African players requested for an extra over, it was blatantly rejected by the officials.

Cricket’s rules can be stubborn at times and nothing matters in front of them at times. While laws are there for the smooth conduct of the game, what transpired in the second ODI at Centurion was one to be condemned. While common sense should have been prevailed when India needed only two runs to win, the umpires decided to take the lunch break, it was only delaying the inevitable.

South Africa, batting first, failed to counter Indian wrist-spinning duo of Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav and could only manage to score 118 in 32.2 overs. Needing 119 to win the match, India, at the time of the farce, were well-placed to complete the final rites and needed only two runs to finish off the game. While it was understandable that the umpires Aleem Dar and Adrian Holdstock extended the lunch break for 15 minutes, they had to call it a break after that.

While they were well within the laws, it shouldn’t have been forgotten that it was only probably a matter of another minute or three and common sense should have prevailed at that time. Just like the last hour of a Test match, the on-field officials could ask the captains if they wanted to continue for one more over. Sure enough, it was not going to be a big controversy.

However, the umpires decided to take both teams out of the field of play and made sure that the crowd, who were already persisting with some terrible cricket by the hosts.

Here is how Twitter reacted to the incident

Scenes if this had happened!

South African dressing room right now!

Experts be like…

RIP Logic

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