In the third and last T20I between Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, controversy erupted as the square lef failed to deem a chest-height no-ball. In the second last ball of the game, Kamindu Mendis faced a beamer from Momand Wafadar. In the replays and real-time it looked like a no-ball. However, the square-leg umpire, Lyndon Hannibal somehow deemed it a legal delivery.
At that point, the home team needed 10 off two balls to complete a clean sweep as they led the series 2-0. However, thanks to the umpiring blunder, the former T20 World Cup winner had to settle with a 2-1 series win as they lost the game by three runs. After the game, Sri Lanka T20I skipper Wanindu Hasarange used some really harsh words for the umpire.
“That kind of thing shouldn’t happen in an international match,” Hasaranga said of the incident. “If it had been close [to waist height], that’s not a problem. But a ball that’s going so high… it would have hit the batsman’s head if it had gone a little higher.
“If you can’t see that, that umpire isn’t suited to international cricket. It would be much better if he did another job.”
We could review these calls before: Sri Lanka skipper Wanindu Hasaranga
The Sunrisers Hyderabad player in the IPL added that earlier, these kinds of incidents were taken care off by the third umpires.
“There was a situation where you could review those calls before, but the Apex Council has got rid of that,” Hasaranga said. “Our batsmen tried to review that. If the third umpire is able to check the front-foot no-ball, he should check this kind of no-ball as well. There’s no reason why they can’t. They didn’t do even that, so I’m not sure what was going on in his (the square-leg umpire’s) mind at the time.”
The playing conditions define this kind of no-ball as: “Any delivery, which passes or would have passed, without pitching, above waist height of the striker standing upright at the popping crease…”
