Ajinkya Rahane survived a dramatic set of three balls where DRS and lack of caught behind appeal helped him continue his innings.
Ajinkya Rahane survived a set of three incorrect decisions on three successive balls at the start of his innings in the IPL 2022 encounter played on Sunday (April 10) afternoon in Mumbai.
The Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) opening batter stayed intact at the crease after two DRS interventions and one ill-advised call from opposition Delhi Capitals (DC) not to opt for the review in a dramatic period in the game.
The first three balls of KKR’s run-chase had as bizarre a beginning as one would see. On the first, Ajinkya Rahane was given out caught behind, only for the DRS to confirm he had not.
The batter was again saved by the referral technology following another incorrect on-field decision, this time an LBW call.
Then in a piece of great fortune, he did nick the ball through the keeper but DC decided not to claim the review with the on-field umpire.
The unlucky bowler involved was DC’s left-arm pacer Mustafizur Rahman, who should’ve had his man but was left ruing not to have asked his skipper Rishabh Pant to go for the DRS.
Ajinkya Rahane wouldn’t have believed his slice of good fortune at that moment, as a straightforward caught dismissal was neither given nor referred upstairs.
The batter tried an uppish drive off a wide ball from Mustafizur but ended up missing it completely. At that point, it looked just another ball in play. But replays later confirmed that the batter had nicked the ball on its way to wicketkeeper Pant.
— Peep (@Peep00470121) April 10, 2022
The DRS also helped the batter survive. The first ball from Mustafizur bowled from ‘over-the-wicket’ angle for the left-armer saw Rahane trying a defensive prod on the front foot. But the ball skidded onto Rahane’s pads while his bat was about to finish off the downswing.
This frame raised the wicket possibility in the minds of DC fielders and they went for an appeal to have the umpire raising his finger. A close-in review taken by Rahane, however, confirmed that the ball had only brushed the pads on its way past the batter and never made contact with the bat.
— Peep (@Peep00470121) April 10, 2022
For the second LBW call, Rahane again tried to counter the left-arm pacer from the frontfoot and got the ball thumping onto his front pad. This again made umpire Jayaraman Madanagopal declare him out. But Rahane, who had felt the contact of the ball higher on his pad, decided to go for the review and once again got the decision in his favour.
