Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) registered a seven-wicket victory over Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in Match 58 of IPL 2023 at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad on Saturday (May 13).
This victory put them back in the reckoning for a spot in the playoffs as the cash-rich tournament rolls towards the final phase of the league stage.
The game also hogged the headlines because of an ugly scene involving the crowd as they were left furious by a bizarre call from the umpire.
Meanwhile, former cricketers Sunil Gavaskar and Simon Doull slammed the unruly behaviour of the spectators, who also chanted "Kohli, Kohli" during their act.
During the 19th over of SRH’s innings, a high full toss by Avesh Khan was called no-ball by the on-field umpire which Abdul Samad inside-edged for a single.
LSG though reviewed the decision and strangely, the TV umpire adjudged the delivery as fair reasoning that the batter was slightly crouched while facing the delivery which the ball-tracker predicted would have gone well over the stumps.
This led to the Hyderabad crowd getting rowdy and the LSG dugout complained that an object was thrown at them. The play was halted for five minutes or so as authorities and police brought things under control.
“What’s hard to understand is most dugouts have what we call flexi-glass. Here we have beach umbrella kind of things, which is no protection. Come on, the Hyderabad Cricket Association can provide the proper dugouts rather than these makeshift things you see. Obviously these are a problem, an issue,” Gavaskar said on-air.
The "Kohli, Kohli" chant from the crowd was to tease LSG in the wake of the infamous altercation at the Ekana Stadium on May 1.
“They’ve actually made it worse for their own team,” said Doull on commentary. “It’s disappointing what they’ve done, we won’t go into the details of what they’ve done but it’s really disappointing.”
After the game, SRH’s wicketkeeper-batter Heinrich Klaasen also expressed his disappointment over the behaviour of the local crowd.
“I’m disappointed with crowd to be honest, that’s not what you want at your home venue. You want people to want to play at your home venue so very disappointed. That broke a lot of momentum. Some not so great umpiring decisions being made but that’s part of the game and you have to get over it and go on with life,” Klaasen stated.
