In what was one of the most see-sawing games in T20 World Cup history, and a highly entertaining one, India prevailed in the end by 4 wickets with no balls left to spare against Pakistan to take 2 points in their first Super 12 match of the T20 World Cup 2022. This highly-octane encounter, which saw one of the greatest T20I knocks by Virat Kohli, witness 90,000-odd spectators at the MCG.
The last over was as chaotic as the game in itself was. One moment it was Pakistan who was up, the other moment it was India.
The last over involved a controversy where the rules of the game have been brought up and questioned by Pakistani fans.
With 13 runs required off the last three balls, Mohammed Nawaz, the left-arm spinner bowled a full-toss which was deemed a no-ball as it was above Kohli’s waist height when he met it with a full-blooded swing of his bat that sent the ball for a six.
The next ball was a free hit, which Nawaz bowled wide. The next ball – with the free-hit continuing – Nawaz bowled Kohli as the batter missed his slog sweep. But both Kohli and Dinesh Karthik had the presence of mind and game awareness that it was a free-hit and as the ball trickled away between the keeper and short third man, the pair ran three runs.
This left the Pakistani fielders questioning that wasn’t the ball dead when Kohli had been bowled, albeit it was a free hit, and they argued with the umpire that those three runs shouldn’t be counted. The Pakistanis argued that because the ball had hit the stumps, so the ball should have been dead at that point and batters can’t run after that.
Despite the protests, the ball was not declared dead by the two umpires after they’d had a conversation and the three runs stood as byes.
The ICC rule on the dead ball says:
“20.1.1 The ball becomes dead when 20.1.1.1 it is finally settled in the hands of the wicket-keeper or of the bowler.
20.1.1.2 a boundary is scored. See clause 19.7 (Runs scored from boundaries).
20.1.1.3 a batter is dismissed. The ball will be deemed to be dead from the instant of the incident causing the dismissal.”
Since Kohli wasn’t out – because it was a free hit – the ball wasn’t dead when it hit Kohli’s stumps.
Earlier this month, there was a similar incident in the Women’s BBL where the batter was bowled on a free-hit but the ball sped away to the boundary after hitting the stumps and 4 runs were awarded to the batting team.
Kohli’s unbeaten 53-ball 82-run epic knock helped India beat Pakistan, completing the revenge of last year’s loss in Dubai.
