Former India opener Aakash Chopra has said that Bangladesh is right in their claim that Virat Kohli did a fake throw during their T20 World Cup 2022 match in Adelaide and 5 penalty runs should’ve been awarded to the Tigers had the umpires seen the incident.
After India defeated Bangladesh by 5 runs via the DLS method, Tigers’ keeper-batter Nurul Hasan made a stunning claim that Virat Kohli of India made a fake throw and Bangladesh should’ve been awarded 5 penalty runs for it.
In the second ball of the 7th over of the Bangladesh chase, India pacer Arshdeep Singh collected the ball in the deep and threw it toward keeper Dinesh Karthik as Bangladesh openers Litton Das and Nazmul Hasan Shanto attempted a couple.
In between all this, Kohli, who had no role in the action, gestured of collecting the ball and throwing it when the ball was not even near him. Kohli's actions had no bearing on the Bangladesh pair as they completed the second run without any difficulty.
But Aakash Chopra, on his YouTube channel, explained that Nurul Hasan and Bangladesh were correct in their claims and Kohli did in fact fake threw. He said that it doesn't matter whether the batters were deceived or not. It is actually the attempt to do it, that's what qualifies as 'fake fielding.'
The fake fielding law 41.5, pertaining to unfair play, says “…it is unfair for any fielder willfully to attempt, by word or action, to distract, deceive or obstruct either batter after the striker has received the ball.”
"The basic premise of the law is that if the on-field umpire feels that you have tried to deceive the batters (by faking a throw or a dive or any other action when the ball is not near you) now whether they have been actually deceived or not doesn't matter. It will result in five penalty runs. If those five penalty runs were given, the two that the Bangladesh pair ran, would still have been counted, the ball would have been dead and Bangladesh would have gotten to choose who takes a strike in the next ball. So the consequences are huge, the penalty for fake fielding is incredible.
Now, what happened in this case? The on-field umpire didn't see. It completely went unnoticed. If no one has seen it then you can't charge it. The law says that the umpires need to notice it and judge it. Maybe the third umpire, if it's in the jurisdiction, can also intervene,” Chopra said on his YouTube channel.
"Woh fake fielding tha, 100% tha, wo jo throw marne ka prayas kia wo agar umpire dekhte toh 5 run ki pentaly padti humko aur 5 run se hum match bhi jeete. (Yes that 100% fake fielding because of the way he attempted to throw the ball. If the umpires had seen it then we would've been slapped with a five-run penalty and we've won by five runs only.) So we escaped here but next time if someone does this then the umpires will have to be more careful. So is Bangladesh right? Yes, they are but nobody noticed it then so can't do anything now," Chopra said.
India will now take on Zimbabwe in Melbourne on November 6 and just need a win to qualify for the semis.
