Gulf Giants defeated the defending champions MI Emirates in a thriller in Abu Dhabi in the ongoing ILT20 on Saturday, January 25, however, not before a little drama towards the end. Tom Curran, straight from the Big Bash League, was at the centre of the action when the Giants required 18 runs off 13 deliveries and the bizarre few minutes of play followed that had Nicholas Pooran, the MI Emirates captain and Giants coach Andy Flower were in the umpires’ ears.
The incident took place on the final delivery of the 18th over of the Giants’ innings when Mark Adair drove an Alzarri Joseph’s harmless delivery to long-off for a single. The batters had completed the run but Curran left the crease assuming that the over had been called without realising that the ball was still in play. Kieron Pollard, the fielder at long-off, picked up the ball and threw at usual speed and before the ball reached the keeper Pooran, Curran had already left the crease. Pooran wasn’t happy at all after Curran left the crease without the ball being dead and was well within his rights to disturb the stumps.
Pooran appealed for a run-out. The umpires sent it upstairs and the third umpire gave the decision in the fielding team’s favour. However, Andy Flower somehow believed that it wasn’t run out and protested the same at the boundary line while chirping a few things.
Frustrated with all the time being wasted, the MI Emirates decided to call back the batter. As per Law 38.1 for Run outs, “Either batter is out Run out if, at any time while the ball is in play, he/she is out of his/her ground and his/her wicket is fairly broken by the action of a fielder.” It was clearly out and the umpires shouldn’t have called the batter back, even if the opposition had agreed to, which created a huge social media furore as well.
Watch the whole incident and take a look at some of the reactions:
After the incident, the Giants needed 17 runs to win off the last two overs. Mark Adair holed out on the very first over of the penultimate over bowled by Fazalhaq Farooqi. Farooqi conceded just six runs in the over to leave 11 for Dan Mousely to defend in the final one, however, a six off a no-ball killed the game even before the 20th over began. Mousely did end up taking Curran’s wicket but it was too late and the Giants sneaked home to get their second win on the board while the Emirates suffered their fourth loss of the competition.
