VIDEO | Aditya Sarwate cringes as fielder’s direct throw lands on umpire’s head

VIDEO | Aditya Sarwate cringes as fielder’s direct throw lands on umpire’s head

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Cricket has enough injury instances to force the field umpires into wearing helmets, but for some or other reasons, the law hasn’t been enforced yet. However, after umpire CK Nandan’s incident in the Irani Cup, he wouldn’t mind becoming the torch bearer in getting the law passed instantly.

Unlike last year, when Vidarbha had taken an insurmountable lead of 800 runs in the first innings itself of the Irani Cup, making the rest of the match a dead meat, the Rest of India side have been very much in the competition this time as they managed to win the toss and add 330 runs in the first innings.

The Ranji Trophy champions, however, justified their mantle by ending their first innings with a score of 425 runs and take a 95-run lead, before asking ROI to post a target. However, with them batting into the fourth day of the match, this competition looked like dead meat as well and needed something to spice things up.

And unfortunately, as fate would have it, that came at the expense of field umpire CK Nandan taking a harsh blow to his head. The incident happened in Aditya Sarwate’s 33rd and the second innings’ 95th over when Hanuma Vihari was on the striker’s end. 

Vihari had pushed the ball towards long-off for a single. However, after the single was safely taken, the fielder’s throw from long-on didn’t see any urgency from Sarwate in catching the ball. In fact, no one at the non-striker’s end looked concerned about the incoming throw when it landed straight on Nandan’s head.

While replays showed Nandan was moving away from his spot wary of the ball, but he hadn’t thought of the pin-point accuracy of it. The new, shiny ball bounced a good two-three feets, after falling on his head as the umpire sat on the ground in pain. He was immediately treated by the physios before he was back on his feet. His fellow umpire Nitin Menon and the other officials wanted him to come off but Nandan continued.

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