During a domestic limited-overs tournament in Australia, Labuschagne became the first victim of ICC's latest rule against 'fake fielding'. Twitterverse, though, isn't happy with yet another law that blatantly favours a batsman.
International Cricket Council's (ICC) latest rule against 'fake fielding' came into play recently. The rule states that a fielder cannot pretend to throw the ball and deceive a batsman when they don't actually have the ball in their hand.
According to the MCC's new Law 41.5: "It is unfair for any fielder willfully to attempt, by word or action, to distract, deceive or obstruct either batsman after the striker has received the ball."
The first victim to this latest regulation was Queensland Bulls fielder Marnus Labuschagne. The incident happened during a JLT One-Day Cup (domestic limited-overs tournament of Australia) match between Queensland Bulls and Cricket Australia XI. Labuschagne dived and tried to stop a cover-drive hit by Cricket Australia XI batsman Param Uppal, but failed to get a hand on the ball. He then tried to trick the batsman by faking a throw.
Watch the incident here:
The on-field umpires noticed what Labuschagne tried to pull off and decided to hand a five-run penalty to Queensland Bulls.
The question that arises, though, is that does cricket need another rule that blatantly favours a batsman? What's the harm in 'fake fielding' anyway? Going by this logic, should football referees start handing out Yellow Cards when a players does a Step-Over? Because in a Step-Over, a player tries to deceive the opponent by faking his movement towards one direction and then going the other way. A five-run penalty for a harmless act such as 'fake fielding' seems rather harsh.
This sentiment against punishment for 'fake 'fielding' was echoed by many on Twitter.
Here are some of those tweets:
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 "cricket, Fake Fielding, australia, Twitter, Tweet, International Cricket Council (ICC), MCC, marnus labuschagne, queensland bull")
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