An unnoticed blunder at the toss of the Sri Lanka v India T20I

The Sri Lanka v India one-off Twenty20 International was a pretty ordinary game in the first view but as we replayed the toss something tricky rolled out. Former Indian cricketer Murali Karthik was there to conduct the toss with Upul Tharanga and Virat Kohli, the two captains by his side along with the Match Referee Andy Pycroft. The host skipper spun the coin, Virat sticking to his preferred side, called heads.

The Match Referee said it was ‘tails’ and that India has won the toss. Karthik heard India and took over stating that it was heads and asked Virat what he wanted to do. Pycroft did make an attempt to say something but the camera moved on to Virat and Karthik who were discussing how the game would roll out thereafter.

Virat opted to bowl first considering there was moisture in the pitch since it was covered all the while it rained in Colombo and chasing has always been India’s stronger suit. Now there can be multiple interpretations for the entire turn of events: one the Match Referee made a huge mistake, he read tails there and declared that the Indian captain had won the toss. Which then makes it his liability, being the highest authority in the match why didn’t he correct the presenter Karthik there and award the toss to the Lankan skipper?

If it was a mistake on his part to say tails while the face on top was indeed heads then that is just a minor error which didn’t really have an impact on the proceedings as the right call was conveyed anyway. A speculative topic now is that had Sri Lanka won the toss and bowled first their young and dynamic batting line-up could’ve chased down a 170 or 180 like total the Indians would’ve expectedly posted.

How things actually panned out was the Sri Lankan team batted first, though they batted with a lot of freedom and aggression, the Indian bowlers kept picking wickets at regular intervals and didn’t let them go past the 170-run mark.

After a poor start losing two cheap wickets, the Indians got things back in control with the Virat Kohli-Manish Pandey partnership. The Indian skipper scored a magnificent half century and took the team on the verge of the win before falling on 82. Pandey scored the winning runs and with that also got to his half century. This 7-wicket win, concluded Team India’s tour with a 9-0 score line.

Here is the video of the toss: