Rishabh Pant found himself in the unusual, unfortunate position of having hit the ball to the boundary rope with his bat, but awarded no runs for his effort, after he overturned an lbw review in the second ODI against England.

The incident occured on the last ball of the 40th over, bowled by Tom Curran. The Surrey seamer initially thought he had claimed a rare ODI wicket when an lbw appeal against Pant was upheld; he had claimed only one wicket in nine previous games for England in the format before today.

However, Pant reviewed instantly, and was quickly reprieved. UltraEdge and replays showed the ball had hit nothing except his bat as Pant got into a tangle playing a reverse ramp. The ball went under his legs and past the appealing Jos Buttler all the way to the fine leg fence.

Despite this, and the fact that, by the time Pant was given out, it would have been impossible for any fielder to prevent the ball going to the boundary, the ball was recorded as a dot ball. Clause 3.7 of Appendix D of the ICC playing conditions, which deal with DRS, explains why.

“If following a player review request, an original decision of Out is changed to Not out, then the ball is still deemed to have become dead when the original decision was made,” it states. “The batting side, while benefiting from the reversal of the dismissal, shall not benefit from any runs that may subsequently have accrued from the delivery had the on-field umpire originally.”

While there is no question that the rule was applied correctly in this instance, some criticised the rule itself.

One of those rules that needs to be changed asap. Imagine happening this in a closely fought World Cup Semi-Final or Final. DRS finds that the batsman nicked a boundary but the team is not getting 4 runs cos the umpire had mistakenly given it out. Absurd. #IndvEng

— Mazher Arshad (@MazherArshad) March 26, 2021

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