IPL 2019 | Obviously the umpire’s fault, says Yuzvendra Chahal
Yuzvendra Chahal has made his displeasure public over the umpire’s failure to adjudge a crucial no ball in the penultimate delivery of Royal Challengers Bangalore's innings. The leg spinner blamed the poor umpiring decisions and bad luck, for his team’s six-run loss against Mumbai Indians.
Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore needed 17 runs in the final over of the match, which was bowled by Mumbai Indians' Lasith Malinga. Shivam Dube smashed a six in the first ball and followed it up with a single. Only one run was scored in the next three balls each, which took the tally to seven runs off the last ball. Dube failed to score on that delivery as RCB lost the match by six runs. However, the TV replays later showed that the final delivery was a no ball, which the umpire S Ravi failed to notice.
"We are very disappointed because it was a crucial ball in the match otherwise we needed just 4 runs. You can say it was bad luck for us. Umpiring is a main factor in T20s and it was the last ball of the match. It was obviously the umpire's fault, the decisions in the game could have been better," said Yuzvendra Chahal, reported India Today.
Chahal, in the first three balls of the 14th over, was smashed for three consecutive sixes by veteran Yuvraj Singh. This was a reminiscence of the 2007 T20 World Cup, where the southpaw had famously hit Stuart Broad for six sixes in an over. But, the 28-year-old deceived Yuvraj to get him caught off Mohammed Siraj at 23, in the fourth ball of the over. He finally ended up with the highest four wickets in the match and gave away 38 runs.
"Truly speaking when he hit me for three sixes I felt like Stuart Broad. He's a legend batsman but I backed myself because I had to pitch one up to him to have a chance of picking up his wicket. It's a small ground and I thought I had to bowl my best delivery at that time so I bowled a wider googly," shared the former chess player.
Mumbai Indians had posted 187/8, courtesy of Rohit Sharma’s 48, Suryakumar Yadav’s 38, and Hardik Pandya’s unbeaten 32. RCB fell short of six runs despite AB de Villiers’ unbeaten 70 off 41 balls, and Kohli’s 46. Jasprit Bumrah was awarded the Man of the Match for his spell, in which he gave away 20 runs and took three wickets.