India wicket-keeper batter Ishan Kishan was slammed when he appeared to get the umpires into believing New Zealand captain Tom Latham had been out hit wicket during the first ODI at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium.
The incident happened on the fourth ball of the 16th over when Latham, playing his first ball of the match, went deep in his crease and tapped off left-arm wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav through the leg side.
Kishan suddenly went up in appeal and was joined in the same by captain Rohit Sharma. The square-leg umpire instantly took the decision upstairs, mainly unclear as to what exactly had happened.
Kishan and the Indian team appealed for Latham's dismissal, indicating that the batter had disturbed the bails by stepping on his stumps. But replays checked by TV umpire K. Ananthapadmanabhan showed Kishan had deliberately knocked a bail off with his glove - at his second attempt - long after Latham had hit the ball.
It took little time for him to declare Latham "Not Out" on the big screen. On-air commentators Sunil Gavaskar and Murali Kartik weren't impressed by Kishan's moves, even as the wicketkeeper-batter continued laughing.
"The cheeky grin is fine, but don't think that was the right thing to do," said Kartik, the former India left-arm spinner. Gavaskar, the legendary India batter, also said in same vein.
"As a joke, it was okay, but then to go on to appeal, don't think that's the right thing to do. As a joke to maybe say, suggest to Tom Latham what had happened earlier when India was batting, that is understandable. But to appeal, that is not on. That is not cricket."
The incident Gavaskar referred to also involving Latham occurred in the 40th over of India's innings, when all-rounder Hardik Pandya was dismissed in freakish circumstances. Hardik tried to cut a Daryl Mitchell delivery through the third man but saw his off-stump bail being dislodged as the ball passed extremely close to the stumps and the on-field umpires referred the call to Ananthapadmanabhan.
Replays showed that Latham was standing up to the stumps and had his gloves very close to the bails, which looked to light up just after the ball had passed over the top of the stumps and was cleanly collected by the keeper.
Viewing a series of replays, the TV umpire tried to check whether Latham's gloves were behind the stumps before he collected the ball, which was the case, so it was a legal delivery. He was eventually satisfied that there was no conclusive evidence that the bail had been dislodged by the wicketkeeper's gloves, which left many dissatisfied as Pandya was dismissed for 38-ball 28.
