Virat Kohli’s punishment for his angry reaction after being dismissed against Kolkata Knight Riders was somewhat predictable. That’s it. The star batsman of Royal Challengers Bangalore was fined half of the match fee.
The IPL authorities announced Kohli’s punishment in a statement on Monday. However, they did not specify why he was fined.
But it is very clear that Kohli got this punishment for showing angry reaction against the umpire’s decision in the Kolkata match on Sunday. Chasing a target of 223 runs, the Indian batting great got out in the third over with 18 off 7 balls. Bengaluru lost the match by 1 run in a closely contested match.
The first delivery of that over was fouled by pacer Harshit Rana at Kohli’s waist height. The Bengaluru opener was out of the crease when the ball was played. Kohli gave the bowler a return catch after not being able to play properly on the slower delivery.
Even though the field umpire gave out, Kohli immediately took the review in the hope of saying ‘no’. But the third umpire also upheld the field decision. That’s when Kohli lost his temper. He was seen angry while talking to the field umpire. He expressed his anger even while leaving the field. He threw the garbage box outside the boundary by hand.
IPL is using new technology to verify the validity of waist height foul balls. Where the batsman’s waist height is already measured. And the height of the ball is seen by the Hawk-eye ball tracking system.
Using the technique, the third umpire saw that Harshit’s slower delivery, which had dropped down, would have reached the popping crease by 0.92 metres. Had Kohli been at the crease, the ball would have been below his waist height of 1.04 metres. So the TV umpire decided to out the batsman.
After Kohli’s dismissal, Bengaluru captain Faf du Plessis said, “Of course, rules are rules. Virat and I thought at that time that maybe the ball was above his waist. I think, they measure it (height) by calculating the popping crease. In such a situation, one party will be happy and the other party will not consider the decision right. That’s the nature of the game.”
Bengaluru is at the bottom of the IPL points table, having won only one of the 8 matches played so far.
