AHMEDABAD: Royal Challengers Bengaluru seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar said his team wanted the umpires to take a closer look at Jason Holder’s catch to dismiss captain Rajat Patidar.
Patidar’s pick-up shot off left-arm seamer Arshad Khan ballooned towards fine leg, where Holder covered good ground from deep square leg before completing a one-handed catch. However, as the tall allrounder landed, his momentum took him into the turf and the ball appeared to get close to the ground, prompting debate over whether the catch had been completed cleanly.
The dismissal broke an important stand and triggered a slide as RCB were bowled out for 155. GT chased down the target with 25 balls to spare. “I wasn’t there. But what I can see is that the ball does touch the ground. But I don’t know what the umpire told them. I don’t know whether it’s something within the law or whatever. I have no idea about that. But we wanted the umpire to have a closer look at that,” Bhuvneshwar said.
Reflecting on the result, Bhuvneshwar said RCB’s bowlers had not done too much wrong, though he acknowledged that Josh Hazlewood had an off day.
“I wouldn’t say anything went wrong. They batted well. Hazlewood had an offday and it happens to anyone in a long tournament. But the way we are bowling in the Powerplay, we are happy. It’s just one of the games in a long tournament in which somebody had an off day, but we tried our best,” he said.
Asked about RCB’s batting, he admitted the side had fallen short. RCB also chose not to use Krunal Pandya’s left-arm spin but Bhuvneshwar said the conditions made them persist with seam. “We had Romario Shepherd as the third seamer, and so we wanted to take a chance with him.
Suyash is someone who is not easy to pick and so we wanted to get wickets as quickly as possible. So that’s why Krunal didn’t bowl.”