Hosts West Indies managed to draw first blood in the T20I leg of ongoing India's tour of the Caribbean and the USA as they managed to earn a hard-fought victory in the first T20I by a margin of four runs at the Brian Lara Cricket Stadium in Trinidad on Thursday, August 3.
While the clash put forward some riveting cricket on display with both sides pushing each other throughout the contest in search of victory, a rare incident involving India's ace leg spinner Yuzvendra Chahal set social media platforms buzzing.
After restricting the Windies to one shy of 150 in their 20 overs, India got off to a miserable beginning and kept losing wickets at regular intervals which kept the visitors in the game. Barring debutant Tilak Varma, who took the attack to the opposition, no other India batter looked threatening enough in the middle to bother the Windies.
Tilak's charismatic knock ended at 39 off 22 balls and came at an impressive strike rate of 177.27, including two fours and three sixes. After Romario Shepherd got the better of the Indian debutant, India needed a solid contribution from its lower order to have a chance of acing the chase.
However, to India's dismay, their lower order failed to put substantial contribution and it saw the Rovman Powell side clinch the tight affair by the barest of margins.
Notably, India needed 10 runs to win off the final over and as soon as Shepherd got the better of Kuldeep Yadav on the first ball, the visitors were staring down the barrel. The Hardik Pandya-led side required a few lusty blows to get over the line and with Chahal and debutant Mukesh Kumar left in the dugout, the team management apparently wanted Mukesh to get a hit in the middle instead of the Indian leggie.
However, Chahal, who was unaware of the strategy headed to the middle and was close to reaching the 22 yards before Umran Malik, a substitute had a word with him and it saw Chahal make a walk back to the dugout. Before he could go back the on-field umpires stepped in and prevented him from doing so.
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The two on-field umpires Gregory Brathwaite and Patrick Gustard asked Chahal to stay back and bat enforcing Law 25.2 that deals with the beginning of a batter's innings. "The innings of the first two batters, and that of any new batter on the resumption of play after a call of Time, shall commence at the call of Play. At any other time, a batter’s innings shall be considered to have commenced when that batter first steps onto the field of play," the law reads.
