Former India cricketer Harbhajan Singh criticized the International Cricket Council sharply for its decision to award five penalty runs to India during their ICC T20 World Cup 2024 match against the United States of America.
The incident occurred prior to the 16th over of India’s innings when on-field umpire Paul Reiffel informed USA’s stand-in captain Aaron Jones that his team had failed to complete three overs within the stipulated time, resulting in the addition of five runs to India’s total.
At 76/3 after 15 overs, India’s score swiftly rose to 81 without a ball being bowled in the subsequent over due to the penalty.
Harbhajan Singh expressed his discontent with the ICC’s handling of such situations, advocating for a simpler approach to governing the game.
“I don’t understand why five runs were awarded to Team India. This went in their favor today, but it could go against them in a future game. The ICC is introducing new rules every now and then, and no one is even aware of them. There are other ways to control the flow of the game. Earlier, the over rate was calculated on the basis of the allotted time for one innings but now you have kept the time limit for one over. I don’t get it,”
Harbhajan Singh said.
Mahmudullah opted for a DRS (Decision Review System), which proved the on-field umpire wrong, leading to the overturning of the decision. Despite this error by the official, Bangladesh were denied the addition of four crucial runs. Ultimately, this oversight played a significant role as Bangladesh lost the match by a mere four runs.
“ICC should also talk about the dead ball rule. For me, Bangladesh should have got four runs but the rule didn’t;t allow that. The decision-makers should also look into that as Bangladesh would have won the contest and not South Africa had the former got four runs,”
he added.
