India skipper Virat Kohli on Tuesday escaped a tight call while batting in the third and final Test of the series against South Africa. While the ground umpire rightly adjudged Kohli not out, turning down Proteas’ appeal, the third umpire also ruled the referred decision in favour of the Indian batter. (More Cricket News)
The incident happened on the fourth ball of the 52nd over of India’s innings. Duanne Olivier bowled down the leg to Kohli who failed to connect to a glance shot. The South African players heard some noise there and started rejoicing as they felt Kohli, who was batting on 39, had nicked the ball. However, neither of the two on-ground umpires Adrian Holdstock and Marais Erasmus were satisfied with it.
Convinced by wicketkeeper Kyle Verreynne, South Africa skipper Dean Elgar decided to take review. As soon as the UltraEdge showed a small spike when the ball crossed Kohli’s willow, the entire South African team started celebrating once again.
However, third umpire Allahudien Paleker was not convinced that Kohli had nicked the ball as he rightly pointed out that there was a daylight gap between Kohli’s bat and the ball when the UltraEdge showed small spike. Further, the replays showed that the ball had actually nicked Kohli’s left pad.
On the other hand, South Africa had yet another good session on Day 1 after getting an invitation to bowl first at Newlands, Cape Town. They reduced India to 75/2 by lunch, while the following session saw them scalping two wickets for 66 runs. In the session, they got the prized wickets of Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane.
Meanwhile, skipper Kohli looked in good touch showing ultimate control for the deliveries bowled outside off. Apart from some close misses that mainly happened on the balls of Kagiso Rabada, Kohli looked solid in the session. Later in the innings, he raced to his 28th Test fifty off 158 balls.
