Indian cricket board official clears air over Delhi Capitals wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant's accurate prediction of a boundary before KKR's Robin Uthappa takes guard
Delhi Capitals' Rishabh Pant reacts as Kolkata Knight Riders cricketer Nikhil Naik looks on during their IPL match at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium in New Delhi on Saturday. Pic/AFP
India's young wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant was yesterday caught in the eye of a storm owing to an edited stump microphone clip from an IPL game which went viral on social media but was dismissed by the BCCI as "misconstrued".
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The less-than-a-minute long clip was from Saturday night's match between Pant's Delhi Capitals and Kolkata Knight Riders. It shows Pant, from behind the stumps, saying that "yeh to chauka hai" [this is a boundary] as KKR's Robin Uthappa took guard against Sandeep Lamichhane. Delhi won the match in Super Over after the scores were tied in the regulation overs.
Rishabh Pant
"No one heard what Rishabh said before that particular sentence. He was telling [Delhi Capitals captain] Shreyas Iyer to increase fielders on off-side to stop an imminent four," a top BCCI official told PTI.
The next delivery was pushed through the covers for a boundary and the edited clip of Pant's purported prediction started doing the rounds from unverified Twitter accounts, claiming to be cricket fans.
What wasn't clear from the video clip was the context of Pant's comment. It is learnt that Hotstar, who hold the digital rights of the IPL, have complained to various social media platforms for illegal use of their footage and are getting the clippings removed.
The BCCI official said that it was "very unfortunate" that social media ran an incomplete clipping. "Maligning a young cricketer without even knowing the details is so unfortunate. A section of media allowed the social media to insinuate and vilify a young talent without getting into details," said the official.
Also Read: IPL 2019: Rishabh Pant turning his X-factor into match-winning performances, says Ricky Ponting
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