New Zealand vs India: Umpires fail to notice Manish Pandey's fake fielding attempt in Auckland

New Zealand and India are currently fighting it out in in the first of the five-match T20I series in Auckland. The visitors won the toss and opted to field after which the Kiwis made the most of the best batting conditions scoring runs at will. India were also guilty of not bowling well and a few mishaps on the field. One of them came from Manish Pandey during the innings even as he tried to bluff the batsmen with an imaginary throw after the mis-field.

The incident took place in the 20th over of the innings when Jasprit Bumrah was bowling. He delivered a very good short ball which surprised Ross Taylor who played a pull shot off the splice of the bat. Manish Pandey who was fielding at the deep mid-wicket came storming at the ball in order to stop the batsmen from taking the second run and in the process, missed collecting the ball itself.

However, even then he made an attempt to throw the ball to bluff the batsmen which clearly goes against the ‘fake fielding’ law. According to the law, if a player attempts a fake fielding deliberately to disturb the batsmen, then the fielding team will be penalised five runs. But in this case, the onfield umpires missed Manish Pandey’s actions and didn’t penalise team India.

Comedy of errors after Manish Pandey’s misfield

The action didn’t stop here as India’s poor fielding continued. After Manish Pandey missed to collect the ball, Ravindra Jadeja picked it and stormed the throw at the bowling end which Bumrah failed to gather. No other player was backing up either which allowed the New Zealand batsmen to run a couple more. On a delivery, where the batsmen were looking for just a single, they got four runs.

Even the Indian captain Virat Kohli was not impressed with the fielding and expressed his disappointment on the field itself. Meanwhile, Manish Pandey’s fake fielding is being questioned on social media as well even as the umpires clearly missed it.

Here’s the video:

Should that be 5 penalty runs for fake fielding? #NZvIND pic.twitter.com/X6LZ1CPZ3h

— Michael Wagener (@Mykuhl) January 24, 2020