VIDEO | Karnataka players left shell-shocked as umpire fails to spot Pujara’s clear edge

01/25/2019

The prospect of introducing DRS in Ranji Trophy has long been a debate on the domestic circuit with poor umpiring in the tournament a burning issue every year. Friday saw the likeliness of it surfacing again as umpire Saiyed Khalid failed to spot Cheteshwar Pujara’s clear edge that was caught.

It seems like Pujara is still reaping the fruits of his marvelous toiling at the face of Australian bowlers' wrath a month back. The Test specialist has returned to India since then, playing a huge role in taking his domestic side Saurashtra to the semi-finals of the Ranji Trophy.

After bundling Karnataka for a paltry 275 runs in the first innings, thanks to Jaydev Unadkat’s four-fer, Saurashtra needed a decent start and they got that in the form of Snell Patel whose opening knock of 85 runs helped the visitors to put up a strong base. However, he was sent back by Shreyas Gopal inducing Pujara, who was playing second fiddle so far, to take up charge now.

While he played a crucial 45 runs before eventually getting out later in the day, his innings could have been significantly slashed down had the umpire did a proper job early on. Pujara had managed just one run from his first 18 balls when Abhimanyu Mithun’s perfect delivery caught him off-guard. Mithun’s short ball managed to get moving quite late forcing Pujara to touch his glove on the way.

The stump mic had a loud thud and the out was so blatantly obvious that the Karnataka players didn’t bother looking at the umpire as they bowler and wicket-keeper Srinivas Sharath jumped in delight as soon as he caught it. It took them some seconds to realize that the umpire was disagreeing with them and soon their celebrations turned into a complaint. Khalid was also seen pacifying the players asking them to get on with the game. Pujara added 44 more runs to his name following that.