The rain-curtailed game between India and Bangladesh in Adelaide panned out in the former’s favour on Wednesday. Shakib Al Hasan’s men went off to a flier in the initial chase of 185 but after the rain break, the momentum started shifting drastically towards India. Liton Das, who smashed a 21-ball fifty and gave a rollicking start, was the first man to depart and the dismissal open the gateway to India’s success.
With 5 wickets in hand, Bangladesh needed 20 off 6 balls in the chase of the revised 151-run target in 15 overs. Arshdeep Singh did a decent job to restrict the opponents to 145/6 and India got a step closer to the semi-finals.
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After the close and tense game, what caught the attention of one and all was a fake fielding act by Virat Kohli. It completely went unnoticed until Bangladesh’s Nurul Hasan pointed it out. In the post-match presser, the wicketkeeper-batter said,
“Certainly, the field was wet and it had an impact and everyone saw that and eventually what I felt is that when we were talking there was a fake throw and it could have been a five-run penalty and that could have gone our way but unfortunately even that didn’t come.”
Soon after Nurul’s statement, the video of the incident started doing rounds on social media. Bangladesh supporters lashed out at Kohli for what they saw in the video. However, the matter of the fact that neither the umpires nor the Bangladesh batters noticed it.
Bangladesh fans are making this video viral and saying Kohli did a fake fielding during yesterday’s match pic.twitter.com/lKEC0lHkkL
— Sachin (@Sachin72342594) November 3, 2022
What’s actually does fake fielding mean?
The term ‘fake fielding’ is used to denote an action that a player does to distract his opponent. As it could be seen in the viral video, Kohli’s reaction made the batter feel that the ball is being thrown towards the end where he was rushing. But actually, the ball was somewhere else. Such actions sometimes lead to a batter diving to complete the run until he realises that the throw hasn’t been attempted for real.
What does the rule say about fake fielding?
Law 41.5, pertaining to unfair play, prohibits the ‘deliberate distraction, deception or obstruction of [the] batter’, and if an incident is deemed to be a breach, the umpire can declare that particular delivery as dead ball, and award the batting side five runs.
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Earlier incidents:
A similar incident happened during the second ODI between Pakistan and South Africa in April 2021. Wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock appeared to have distracted or deceived Fakhar Zaman who eventually got run out. Chasing 342, Fakhar was in the middle of an epic knock of 193, nearly taking Pakistan to victory.
With 31 needed off the last 6 balls, he drove pacer Lungi Ngidi to long off and came back for a second run. Spotting an opportunity for a wicket, De Kock seemingly pointed to the non-striker’s end even after the throw was completed, which led to Fakhar thinking the throw was not coming to his end. However, the throw was in his direction and a runout caught him short.
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