Sunil Gavaskar and Simon Doull dig in a banter on ICC’s fake-fielding rule

Just over a month ago, the International Cricket Council (ICC) made a set of changes to the game of cricket. And amongst them, the most hysterical was the one which imposes 5 penalty runs on the opposition, if a team was found guilty of ‘fake-fielding.’ As absurd, it may sound, it would mean every time MS Dhoni manoeuvres a ball onto the stumps while giving the impression that he has no intention of running the batsman out, it could cost India a five-run penalty.

It implies that every time a fielder slides even though he is nowhere near the ball, just to give the batsmen a pause while another fielder collects it, will cost the team a penalty. However, fake fielding on the cricket field is quite rare but when it occurs it can often create doubts in the minds of batsmen that could lead to dismissals.

The ongoing India vs Sri Lanka fixture witnessed such an instance. Earlier today, during the 53rd over, Bhuvneshwar Kumar pushed one through covers off Rangana Herath’s delivery. While he was attempting for the second run the cover fielder, Dinesh Chandimal, put in a slide while he was nowhere close to collecting the ball.

Chandimal was then called on by the umpires and given a warning. However, no penalty was awarded to India. An animated Indian skipper, Virat Kohli was left unimpressed as he gestured towards the cameras for a penalty of five runs.

Gavaskar and Doull have a funny exchange in the commentary box

Despite no attention from the umpires, the topic was picked on by veterans of the game, sitting in the commentary box- Sunil Gavaskar and Simon Doull. The duo decided to make a banter and dig into it.

On the next delivery, Bhubaneshwar miscued a shot to which Gavaskar jokingly said, “He (Bhubaneshwar Kumar) missed the shot so the fielding side should get 5 penalty runs as he faked it.”

To this Doull replied, “Waiting for Herath to bowl a quicker delivery and that will be fake bowling pretending to be a spinner and he cannot bowl quick.”

Despite finding a comic relief out of the situation, Gavaskar believes that “The sooner it is done away with the better, it’s absolutely an unbelievable rule.”