Virat Kohli spotted fuming following the fake fielding from Dinesh Chandimal

Fake fielding in cricket has been a rare occurrence, but of late has been extensively used by the modern-day fielders to confuse the batsmen. Sometimes the fake fielding even leads to a dismissal. In the on-going match between India and Sri Lanka at the Eden Gardens, we witnessed one such incident in the 53rd over of the game.

Sri Lankan captain Dinesh Chandimal, who was fielding at covers, put in a slide and faked as if he had the ball in his hold prevented the batsmen from attempting another run. Under the new ICC rules, this act comes under the purview of the fake fielding rule, and five runs are awarded to the batting side as a penalty.

However, for this incident on-field umpires Nigel Llong, Joel Wilson decided against giving a penalty to the fielding team and just warned Chandimal which didn’t go down well with those in the Indian dressing room. Skipper Virat Kohli was raging and visibly unimpressed with the decision from the on-field umpires. He also gestured asking for five penalty runs when the cameras’ zoomed at him.

A similar incident was penalised in Australia

An identical incident had occurred in the recently concluded JLT Cup in Australia where Queensland Bulls’ Marnus Labuschagne was penalised for ‘fake fielding’. According to the lawmakers of the game, this action is against the spirit of cricket and the opposing team were awarded five runs as a penalty.

The penalty was not served to the visitors, as they escaped from its wrath narrowly. India, who begin the third day of play five down struggling to read the line and length of the Sri Lankan bowlers. A solid partnership between Ravindra Jadeja and Wriddhiman Saha propelled the Indian total to over 150 runs.

The last bit of damage was done by the tail-enders Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav, who struck some lusty blows to help India to a total of 172 on a seaming Eden Garden wicket. For the visitors, it was right-arm pacer Suranga Lakmal who did the damage, picking up four wickets for 26 runs.