Gautam Gambhir’s sportsmanship spirit under the scanner as he refuses to walk despite nicking the ball

Cricket is a gentleman’s game and it is expected to be played with sportsmanship spirit when the two teams lock horns on the 22 yards. But the discarded Indian opener Gautam Gambhir has come under the scanner for the same reason the in the recently concluded semifinal between Delhi and Bengal in the ongoing season of Ranji Trophy 2017-18. Though the game didn’t change much with his actions as he didn’t add many runs after that but surely his sportsmanship has been questioned by many.

The incident happened on the second day of the match when Delhi was in a strong position in pursuit of Bengal’s 286 in the first innings. Gambhir had just reached his century and the score of his team read 174/0 when he nicked a delivery from Aamir Gani to Shreevats Goswami. However, the umpire Abhijeet Deshmukh was unsure about it and gave not-out. The bowler and the wicketkeeper were so sure that they had actually started celebrating and the bowler was also seen pleading to the umpire to give it out.

Even the left-handed batsman was unmoved but replays clearly suggested that Gambhir had nicked it while trying to cut the ball. It could be argued that the umpire’s decision matters the most on the field and the decision to walk is completely of the batsman and he has full right to continue to stay on the wicket. But the experienced campaigner like Gautam Gambhir is expected to set the example now with his sportsman spirit and should’ve walked. He didn’t make much difference though as he was dismissed soon after 26 runs on 127.

Watch the video here:

GambhirNotOut from noenergydeb on Vimeo.

Delhi through to the finals

Delhi have reached the finals by defeating Bengal on the third day itself as they collapsed in their second innings for a paltry total of 86 runs. They could not even go past the first innings lead of 112 taken by their opposition by scoring 398 runs in their first innings. Though bowling them out for such a score was a stunning comeback from Bengal as the opening stand for Delhi had added 232 runs. But their batsmen disappointed in the second innings and lacked the skills in front of some excellent bowling by Navdeep Saini who scalped four wickets.