The SRH-RR match almost exposed cricket’s biggest loophole in the rules book |Courtesy-screengrab
KEY HIGHLIGHTS
- SRH and RR played a last-ball thriller
- Rovman Powell was dismissed by Bhuvneshwar Kumar
- Powell’s DRS call almost exposed a big loophole
Remember how the cricket world was hit with a sudden realization of the boundary count rule to win a super over in the 2019 Cricket World Cup final after New Zealand’s heartbreaking defeat to England at Lord’s? The 2024 Indian Premier League (IPL) clash on Thursday (May 2) between Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and Rajasthan Royals (RR) saw another massive loophole in the rules book being exposed.
The replays showed the on-field call was correct and the ball was crashing into the stumps, confirming that SRH had won the game by one run.
How Cricket’s Biggest Loophole was exposed?
Most cricket fans would have thought that if DRS showed the ball was missing the stumps and DRS overturned the decision, the game would have gone to a super over as the batting team had completed a run. However, that would not have been the case, and SRH would still have won the game if the DRS had shown a not-out decision as the on-field umpire had given it out.
According to the ICC playing conditions, once an on-field decision is given out, that ball is declared dead, and the batting team cannot add any runs to their tally even if the decision is changed.Infact, even if Powell had edged the delivery and the umpire failed to spot the edge on the field even in that case, RR would have lost the match even if DRS corrected the decision.
“If following a Player Review request, an original decision of ‘Out’ is changed to ‘Not Out’, then the ball is still deemed to have become dead when the original decision was made. The batting side, while benefiting from the reversal of the dismissal, shall not benefit from any runs that may subsequently have accrued from the delivery had the on-field umpire originally,” Appendix D of ICC playing conditions state.
Today’s close call is a warning for the lawmakers to take a close look at the rules. One can only hope that it does not take such an incident to occur in a World Cup final for this rule to be corrected because it is a volcano waiting to erupt.