The CSK speed player had not made up the more than eight minutes he was off the field when Dhoni was about to bring him on – and a lengthy chat with the referees ensued
Nagraj Gollapudi24. May 2023 • 1 hour ago
MS Dhoni chats with Referee Chris Gaffaney about Matheesha Pathirana BCCI
How could Matheesha Pathirana throw his second over – no less in the death overs – in the Chennai Super Kings qualifier against Gujarat Titans when he was more than eight minutes off the field? Even when the Chennai Super Kings won the match by 15 runs, the question caused a lot of excitement.
Under IPL terms of play, a player who leaves the field for treatment of an internal injury – or for any other reason – for more than eight minutes must return on the field for a similar amount of time before being allowed to bowl. It could not be confirmed what, if any, discomfort Pathirana had when he left the field. A request to CSK to find out why Pathirana left the field has so far gone unanswered.
He had delivered his first over – the 12th – which went for ten runs, including four wides. Sometime after that he left the field. On his return, he was tasked with bowling the 16th over. The Titans were 102-6 at this point and needed another 71 runs to win.
As MS Dhoni, the CSK captain, completed the pitch, he noticed that Pathirana was being approached by Anil Chaudhary, the on-pitch referee at the forward’s end. Dhoni went to Chris Gaffaney, who was on his feet, to inquire. TV commentators explained that Pathirana was out for nine minutes so the conversation was clearly about whether he was eligible to bowl at that point.
ESPNcricinfo has learned that the referee informed Dhoni at the time that Pathirana had to wait a few more minutes before he could bowl again. Dhoni is understood to have acknowledged the terms of the game but argued that he had no choice but to bowl Pathirana.
His three other front-line bowlers – Ravindra Jadeja, Maheesh Theekshana and Deepak Chahar – had completed their four overs. Only Tushar Deshpande had two overs left in addition to Pathirana’s three. Moeen Ali, the only other bowling option, hadn’t bowled at all and it was learned Dhoni told the umpires he couldn’t afford to bowl an offspinner against the two right batters – Vijay Shankar and Rashid Khan Center.
The minutes flew by. Dhoni was reminded that if the 20th over did not start by the designated cut-off, he and CSK face both the financial penalty for slow over-quoting and the intra-game penalty for having only four fielders outside the 30-yard circle Time. It is understood the Titans’ batters also checked with game officials about the delay.
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Eventually, Pathirana was allowed to bowl after four minutes of discussions between Dhoni and the umpires, taking the time he had to miss out on. He wasted 13 runs in his second over, then chose the wicket of Vijay Shankar in his next over, which went over four runs and also ran Darshan Nalkande out of the field.
Financially, the delay didn’t hurt CSK, although they suffered an in-game penalty as they restarted after the cut-off time in the 20th game.
The question remains whether the umpires considered penalizing CSK under the unfair play law, Law 41.9, which concerns wasting time by the fielding team. Under this rule, the umpires must issue a first and final warning to the field captain if they feel that time is being wasted on purpose during an over. A repetition of the same offense will result in the batting side being awarded five penalty runs and the bowler being suspended. However, enforcement of the wasting time rule is entirely at the discretion of the referees.
There is still a chance for other teams to look at this incident and it could become a trend in the future.
Nagraj Gollapudi is a news editor at ESPNcricinfo