Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) went down against Mumbai Indians (MI) by six runs due to a no-ball howler from umpire S Ravi at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. Meanwhile, this led to an outburst from RCB skipper Virat Kohli at the end of the game who slammed the match officials. However, Ravi is likely to escape any sanction due to lack of umpires with international experience on BCCI’s roster.
Ravi unlikely to receive sanction
Lasith Malinga defended 17 runs in the last over as Mumbai registered their first win. However, the veteran fast bowler overstepped while bowling the last delivery of the game. But umpire S Ravi failed to pick it which cost Royal Challengers Bangalore the match. Soon after the match, RCB skipper Virat Kohli hurled a mouthful and also barged to the game- referees room to register his anger. Despite this, the umpires are likely to escape any official punishment. A member who is close to the developments said that there are only 11 Indian umpires allotted for on-field and TV duty for 56 IPL games. As a result, match- referee can mark S Ravi, but BCCI won’t punish him.
“Currently we have only 17 umpires assigned on-field and for third umpires’ duty. Out of them, 11 are Indian and six foreigners from the Elite Panel. Apart from them, we have six more Indians as fourth umpires,” the member told PTI.
The BCCI along with the Committee of Administrators (COA), seemed worried about the declining standard of Indian umpires but has not been able to come up with a feasible solution. Besides, one of the core issues that BCCI has been unable to address is the qualifying structure through which umpires are coming up the ranks.
As per reports in PTI, there were about 114 umpires who had officiated in around 2000 BCCI games of all age groups (Men and Women). Despite, the recently concluded season witnessed many umpiring howlers – the most prominent of those was when Cheteshwar Pujara was given not out during the Ranji Trophy semi-final between Saurashtra and Karnataka.