‘Umpires Should Have Their Eyes Open,’ Says Furious Kohli After Second Consecutive Defeat

An umpiring misjudgement has led to much controversy after Mumbai Indians defeated the Royal Challengers Bangalore and skipper of the losing side, Virat Kohli has left no stone unturned to lambaste the umpire.

Needing six to take the game into Super Over, Lasith Malinga’s final delivery to Shivam Dube was a no-ball that was missed by the on-field umpires as RCB managed 181 for 5 in reply to 187 for 8 by Mumbai Indians.

What hurt them more was AB de Villiers, who nearly took his team to a victory with an unbeaten 70 off 41 balls would have faced the free-hit. Both umpires C Nandan and ICC Elite Panel’s S Ravi bungled completely leaving Virat Kohli seething in anger. But nothing can be taken away from fit-again Bumrah’s mastery at the death as he singlehandedly won it for MI with superb 17th and 19th overs.

The game though will be remembered for umpire S. Ravi’s failure to spot the no-ball off the last ball of the RCB innings and skipper Virat Kohli made his displeasure known at the end of the game, saying that the teams were not playing club cricket and the officials needed to be more careful.

So close, yet so far. We'll bounce back. We've played bold tonight, we'll #playbold in our next game. #RCBvMI pic.twitter.com/ypRciD2Bxg

— Royal Challengers (@RCBTweets) March 28, 2019

“We are playing at the IPL level and not playing club cricket. The umpires should have had their eyes open. That is a ridiculous call (last ball). If it is a game of margins, I don’t know what is happening. They should have been more sharp and careful out there,” he rued.

Moving on, Kohli also felt that his bowlers should have done a better job and not let MI all-rounder Hardik Pandya take the game away with his late innings blitzkrieg.

“When they were 145 for 7, we should have done better. The last few overs were brutal for us,” he pointed.

Kohli also felt that the RCB batsmen should have given AB de Villiers
(70* off 41 balls) more support just like the bowlers could take a leaf out of the Mumbai bowlers’ page.

“A few more strikes apart from AB could have done the job for us. We need to be smarter at death bowling. Sure the guys will take a lot of learnings from the game.

“I think the way they bowled, we can learn from their game. The onus is always on each and every member of the team. I got out at a wrong point of time. Shivam was good as well,” he said.

Kohli also accepted that taking on Bumrah was a mistake on his part at that point in the chase as the pacer is a champion performer.

“I mean Jassi is a top-class bowler. A bit of a mistake from me to take him on at that stage. Mumbai is lucky to have him. And also Malinga. And if Jassi is in good form, it is good for India,” he said.

(With IANS Inputs)