At the Rajkot Test match, England were awarded five penalty runs after Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin ran on the danger zone in separate incidents.

India were reduced to 33-3 in the first morning after opting to bat in the third Test against England before Rohit Sharma (131) and Ravindra Jadeja (112) put on 204 for the third wicket.

Debutant Sarfaraz Khan blasted a 66-ball 62 before India slipped from 314-4 to 331-7. R Ashwin joined debutant wicketkeeper Dhruv Jurel at this point.

 

Rehan Ahmed bowled the 102nd over of the innings. Ashwin played the third ball of the over to cover and wanted a run, but Jurel sent him back. There was no danger of a run out, but umpire Joel Wilson rewarded five penalty runs to England immediately afterwards.

On day one, Jadeja had run on the danger area of the pitch and had been warned by the umpires. When Ashwin did the same while setting off for the single against Rehan, he violated Law 41.14 (Batter damaging the pitch), which states that “a batter will be deemed to be causing avoidable damage if either umpire considers that his/her presence on the pitch is without reasonable cause.”

Penalties are usually rewarded to the batting sides, but since England were fielding at the time of the incident, they will instead begin their innings at 5-0. Jadeja had been at the receiving end of a similar incident against New Zealand in the Indore Test match of 2016/17 as well.

However, perhaps the most incredible incident of such nature took place during the 2018 Women’s T20 World Cup, when Pakistan incurred two such penalties in the space of four overs. India began their chase with 10-0 on the scoreboard.

At Rajkot, India were 377-7 at the time of writing with Jurel on 22 and Ashwin on 24.

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