A controversy erupted during South Africa's ICC T20 World Cup 2024 match against Bangladesh on Monday. The moment of contention occurred in the 17th over of Bangladesh innings as they were chasing the target of 114.
South African speedster
Ottneil Baartman was given the responsibility of bowling the 17th over the innings with Bangladesh needing 27 more runs to win from the remaining 24 deliveries. Batting in the middle for Bangladesh were Towhid Hridoy and Mahmudullah. Hridoy worked the first ball of the over to mid-wicket for a single. The next delivery was full and Mahmudullah looked to flick the ball but missed the ball completely. The ball instead hit the pads and South African players were up in appeal for LBW! As the South African players appealed for LBW the ball rolled down to the boundary. The on-field umpire raised his finger and declared Mahmudullah as out. But the Bangladesh veteran was confident that the ball was missing the leg stumps. So Mahmudullah opted to take the review. The review indeed showed that the ball was missing the leg stump. The TV Umpire overturned the on-field umpire's initial call of out and declared Mahmudullah as not-out. Although
Mahmudullah survived but Bangladesh were not awarded the runs for the ball rolling down to the boundary rope. According the laws of cricket a ball is counted as a dead delivery soon after an umpire's verdict.
So the umpire had declared
Mahmudullah out before the ball reached the fine-leg fence. Hence the ball was dead and a team cannot be awarded runs for a dead delivery. Instead, the delivery has now gone in the records as a dot ball.
Strangely, Bangladesh lost the match by mere 4 runs.
