'Woh fake fielding tha' - Aakash Chopra on Virat Kohli's fake throw incident against Bangladesh

All the talks around Virat Kohli's 'fake throw' incident in the ongoing T20 World Cup are yet to come to a standstill. Even though Kohli in the match against Bangladesh scaled the record of becoming the leading run-scorer in the history of T20 World Cup, he is also making the headlines for some wrong reasons.

Bangladesh vice-captain Nurul Hasan accused the former India captain of fake fielding which could have granted them (Bangladesh) five crucial runs but neither the two Bangladesh batters batting in the middle at the time nor the umpires took note of it. 

Now, even though many experts have given their opinion in favour of Kohli, former India opener Aakash Chopra is convinced that the 33-year-old made an error and the Bangladesh team should have been awarded the penalty runs. In his latest YouTube video, the former cricketer also explained why the umpires didn’t give the decision in favour of the Bangla Tigers.

“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 was 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 are Bangladesh right? Yes, they are but nobody noticed it then so can’t do anything now,” the 45-year-old said on his YouTube channel.

“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 jurisdiction, can also intervene,” the former cricketer added.

The consequences are huge, the penalty for fake fielding is incredible: Chopra

Explaining his point further, Aakash explained how the law works and how it could have cost India two valuable points. 

“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 that five penalty runs were given, the two that the Bangladesh pair ran, would have still been counted, the ball would have been dead and Bangladesh would have gotten to choose who takes strike in the next ball. So the consequences are huge, the penalty for fake fielding is incredible,” the former cricketer said.

Click here to know the T20 World Cup Points Table and T20 World Cup Schedule updates.