Nathan Lyon charged for dropping the ball on AB de Villiers

The first Test match between Australia and South Africa has already seen some heated moments which was expected at the start of the series. The visitors have continued to dominate in the rainbow nation and won the game by 118 runs. The fourth day saw a stupendous century from Aiden Markram which kept Australia at bay. However, the day was also marred by Nathan Lyon dropping the ball on AB de Villiers after running him out for which he has been charged by the match referee Jeff Crowe.

The incident happened in the second innings of the game when South Africa were chasing a mammoth total of 417. The wicket of Hashim Amla had brought De Villiers in the middle and the team was hoping for him to resurrect the innings along with Markram. However, he was involved in the mix-up with his partner in the very next over and was run-out courtesy a perfect fielding effort from David Warner.

Did Lyon accept the charge?

De Villiers lost his balance on his way back to the crease and hobbled his knees finally going to the ground in his attempt. But Nathan Lyon had disturbed the stumps by then to catch him short. However, the bowler dropped the ball on De Villiers itself and joined his teammates to celebrate the wicket. Though the actions from him were not deliberate, it didn’t look nice on the part of Lyon and even he accepted the charge on him.

He was charged with Level 1 offence by the match referee Jeff Crowe and the offie accepted the charge even apologising to AB De Villiers about the same.

More tension in the game

The match referee will have his task cut out after the game as reportedly Quinton de Kock and David Warner were involved in an altercation and the things went ugly in the tunnel when the players were going off after the second session. The CCTV footage of the same has gone viral and ICC is yet to make any statement on the matter.

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