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Controversy over Poor Umpiring and DRS Outage

Last updated on: May 13, 2022 09:23 IST

IMAGE: Chennai Super Kings Coach Stephen Fleming and Captain MS Dhoni were left helpless after Conway's unfair dismissal for an LBW. Photograph: BCCI

Chennai Super Kings suffered due to a dubious on-field umpiring call after a short-circuit at the Wankhede Stadium led to unavailability of Decision Review System (DRS) for 10 balls during their IPL match against Mumbai Indians on Thursday.

 

With DRS system not functional, CSK opener Devon Conway couldn't get his leg before decision overturned as the delivery from Daniel Sams would have missed the leg-stump by a distance.

In fact, neither Mumbai CA, which is the local association nor BCCI, the organisers of the tournament, offered any official explanation of power outage and short circuit on record but off-record put the blame on each other. A BCCI source said that "short-circuit" happened in one of the power supply outlets which was directly linked to the DRS system and hence it could not be set up initially.

"The DRS system had to be reset after normalcy was restored and it became available after the first 10 balls," the source informed.

Conway was the only dismissal that would have surely been reversed as Robin Uthappa was plumb in-front even though the system wasn't working back then.

According to a MCA official, there was also a technical glitch caused the delay in the toss when one of the flood-light towers went off. "As far as the flood light issue is concerned, we rectified the problem immediately," the MCA official said, adding that there was no issue from the BEST (local department), which supplies electricity to the stadium.

Just after Uthappa's dismissal, the DRS was restored and the players were apparently told by the umpires about it

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