Harbhajan Singh, the former Mumbai Indians skipper has defended the captain of the side Rohit Sharma, who was indulged in a controversy last night when he questioned the decision of umpire openly,
“The ball was too far outside, to be honest, but I don’t really know whether it was wide or not. If both the batsman’s legs move, then bowler should get the margin, but Rohit’s one leg had moved and as per me it should have been a wide. But we have to move on with the umpire’s decision and they played better than us and it was a great game of cricket.”
“He (Rohit) wanted to check what is the rule then, where he need to stand, he did not shout at the umpire and asked him why did he not call a wide, he was asking where should I stand so that it is called a wide, if the bowl so outside, the more you move, the bowler will get the margin,” Bhajji said.
It was the third delivery of the second innings when Mumbai Indians needed just 11 runs to win off the last four balls. Jaydev Unadkat, bowled one outside off stump which Rohit Sharma could not hit. He was expecting the ball to be called as wide by the umpire but instead, umpire judged it as a fair delivery which irked Rohit who went at the other end to enquire about the same from the umpire.
It looked like a heated exchange and the leg umpire Nandan Kishore had to intervene in between to sort out the issue.
The match officials took note of Rohit’s actions and he was fined 50% of his match fees for breaching the code of conduct. It was the second time in the tournament when Rohit was fined for breaching the code of conduct.
Further, Harbhajan also said it was not the deciding delivery of the game as Rohit was batting quite nicely before that,
“I don’t know whether momentum was lost (because of the wide not being called), Rohit was hitting nicely but unfortunately he ended up hitting the ball straight in the air. That’s what happens, cricket is a game, anything can happen,” he said.
“Just before that he hit a six and a similar ball went up in the air. I don’t think momentum would have lost, at that time (you need to do) as a batter, just see and hit the ball, Rohit was batting on 50 odd, so don’t think there were chances to lose the momentum,” he added.
With that loss, Mumbai Indians could not break their own winning streak, as previously, the team had won six back to back games and needed only one more win to break their own record.
However, the day was a memorable one for Harbhajan Singh, as he became the third Indian cricketer after Amit Mishra (208) and Ravichandran Ashwin (200) to take 200 wickets in T20 cricket.