With Australia playing Afghanistan at the Adelaide Oval, the blunder happened in the fourth over of their innings.
A spectacular umpiring error deprived Australia off a delivery in their Super 12 match against Afghanistan at the T20 World Cup on Friday. Australia needed to win the game with a big margin to top the group A of Super 12 over New Zealand.
With Australia playing Afghanistan at the Adelaide Oval in the T20 World Cup Super 12 match, the blunder happened in the fourth over of their innings. Only five deliveries were bowled by pacer Naveen-ul-Haq but the umpires appear to have miscalculated. What may have resulted in the screw up was the fourth ball of the over when messy fielding by Afghanistan resulted in overthrows. David Warner and Mitchell Marsh took advantage of the sloppy fielding and ran three.
The error was highlighted on social media where people watching the match spotted and shared that the scorer had given Australia only 2 runs on the fourth ball and then given three runs on the fifth which hadn’t been bowled till then. The umpires then committed the error of judging the pacers fifth delivery as the final ball and called it an over.
But what is more surprising is that the error of the two extra runs did not show up in Australia’s scorecard while they were deprived of a delivery. Australia eventually won the match but not with the desired result of a big margin to lift their net run rate out of negative. While the error of one less ball did not significantly impact the result, the blatant blunder at the biggest stage will be a matter of concern.
Hosts Australia finished their innings at 168/8 in 20 overs (read one ball less). In reply, Afghanistan put up a valiant effort and reached 164/7, falling short by only 4 runs after star player Rashid Khan played a brilliant and explosive 48-run cameo at the very end. Australia's qualification bid is now out of their hands and all hopes now rely on Sri Lanka beating England on Saturday. If England win, they qualify for final four effectively knocking Australia out of the T20 World Cup 2022.
READ | New Zealand beat Ireland by 35 runs to finish group stage on a high, qualify for semis
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