Irani cup: Parthiv Patel furious with umpire Virender Sharma's howlers

Irani cup: Parthiv Patel furious with umpire Virender Sharma's howlers
Parthiv Patel. Raju Shinde BCCL
On another day, we would have devoted this space for unlucky Rest of India fast bowler Pankaj Singh who was to have just one wicket to show for his lion-hearted effort throughout the Day Three of the Irani Cup tie at the CCI. Or the four wickets by Shahbaz Nadeem and fifties from Gujarat's the prolific Priyank Panchal (73) and Chirag Gandhi (55 not out, playing with three stiches on righthand finger). But it was two umpiring howlers from Virender Sharma that demand more attention.

The first one came in the second ball off the 48th over of Gujarat's second innings. They had secured a 132 run first innings lead and then proceeded to 133 for 3. Parthiv Patel was batting on 32 and had Manprit Juneja for company. He had weathered a fiery spell from Singh and was looking to build on.

Then Sharma decided to intervene. A faster one from Nadeem hit the rough, turned a bit and hit Patel on the pad. The ball ballooned in the vacant space between the keeper and the short-leg fielder Akhil Herwadkar who jumped to grab it. As expected there was a huge appeal and to the surprise of one and all Sharma decided to raise his finger.

Parthiv was the least amused of the lot. The stump microphone picked up his frustration: Umpiring hi kyoon karte ho! (Why do you even umpire!). Al though he didn't know at that point, Parthiv was just five runs short of 10,000 first class runs.

The Gujarat captain kept staring at Sharma for a long while as he walked back to the pavilion and immediately made his way to the match referee's room.

Besides the statistical significance, the dismissal has the potential to change the course of the game. At the end of the day's play, Patel refused to say much of the incident due to obvious reasons, but hinted that the visual evidence was there to prove that the decision wrong.

LBW OR CAUGHT AT SLIP

Sharma's second intervention was even more shocking. The lucky bowler was once again Nadeem and the batsman Mohit Thadani. The ball missed the bat, hit the pad and was caught by Manoj Tiwary at slips. As Sharma raised his finger, no one knew if Thadani was dismissed lbw or caught at slips. The replays showed the ball was nowhere near the bat, although Thadani gestured the ball had brushed the bottom of his bat, and would have missed the leg stump. The broadcasters declared him lbw but it was later changed to caught.

As Nadeem said later, the original appeal was for lbw but when Thadani indicated that he had edged the ball, they appealed for a catch. The reality was that Thadani was neither caught at slips nor lbw. He was just unlucky.

Sharma, who hails from Himachal Pradesh and has himself played 50 first-class matches during a career that spanned 15 years, had been an inconsistent performer. In this years' Ranji semi-final he had given Dinesh Karthik lbw when the ball had hit the bat first. He and his partner Abhijit Deshmukh, who incidentally is also officiating in this Irani tie, were also involved in war of words with Mumbai captain Aditya Tare over the removal of covers on a foggy fifth morning.

At stumps, Gujarat were 227 for 8.The lead is 359 runs and it will require a special effort from Rest batsmen to retain the title.

Brief scores: Gujarat 358 and 227 for 8 (P Panchal 73, C Gandhi 55 not out; Shahbaz Nadeem 4 for 53, M Siraj 2 for 39) v Rest of India 226.