Pujara refuses to walk against Karnataka: The Indian batsman’s decision to not walk after edging the ball has invited furious reactions.
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During the second semi final of the ongoing Ranji Trophy between Karnataka and Saurashtra at Bengaluru, Saurashtra middle-order batsman Cheteshwar Pujara received a lot of backlash after he refused to walk despite edging the ball to the wicket-keeper.
It all happened on the final delivery of the 23rd over after Karnataka pacer Abhimanyu Mithun bowled a peach of a delivery to Pujara. The ball seemed to come into the batsman and jagged away after pitching. One can imagine the quality of the delivery which ended up beating someone of Pujara’s calibre.
After the ball landed in wicket-keeper Srinivas Sharath’s hands, Karnataka’s fielder went up in unison expecting umpire Saiyed Khalid to raise his finger. To their dislike and anger, neither the batsman walked nor the umpire rule him out.
With the bowl clearly coming off the gloves of Pujara, the hosts didn’t seem happy with how things proceeded. The disappointment of the howler was evident on the faces of senior Karnataka players like captain Manish Pandey and batsmen Karun Nair.
Pujara, who had scored a sole run by then, ended up scoring 45 (99) with the help of three fours and a six. He was eventually dismissed by Mithun only. The visitors ended Day 2 at 227-7 in 66.3 overs. Having scored 85 (131) with the help of 15 fours, wicket-keeper batsman Snell Patel was the pick of the batsmen for Saurashtra.
Earlier in the morning, Saurashtra bowled out the hosts on 275 in 100.3 overs. All-rounder Shreyas Gopal, who came in to bat at No. 6, top-scored for his team scoring 87 (182) with the help of nine fours and a six. Other than him, Sharath (83*) and Pandey (62) also chipped in with individual half-centuries.
With bowling figures of 21-6-56-4, pacer Jaydev Unadkat was the highest wicket-taker for Saurashtra in the first innings. Watch the full video of Pujara not walking below:
