South Africa were handed a rare-five run penalty today (October 30) after Wiaan Mulder and Senuran Muthusamy were punished for running straight down the pitch in the second Test match against Bangladesh.
The incident occurred during the seventh-wicket partnership of South Africa's first innings. After Tony de Zorzi and Tristan Stubbs both scored centuries, Mulder set about pushing the Proteas' score in the middle-order. He'd reached the 90s by the time Hasan Mahmud came in to bowl his 23rd over of the innings, with Muthusamy on strike for the second ball. Dealt a yorker length delivery, Muthusamy jammed his bat down and the ball squirted to deep backward point, allowing the batters to take two.
However, when running to the other end, Muthusamy ran straight down the middle of the pitch. The two runs the batters ran were subsequently removed from South Africa and Muthusamy's total by the umpires, and a penalty of five runs was awarded, meaning when Bangladesh started their first innings, they did so already on 5-0.
South Africa cop five-run penalty: What do the Laws say?
MCC Law 41.15.1 states: "The striker shall not adopt a batting position in the protected area or so close to it that frequent encroachment is inevitable," before Law 41.15.2 goes on: "If there is a breach of any conditions in 41.14.1 by the striker, the umpire seeing the contravention shall, if the bowler has not entered his/her delivery stride, immediately call and signal Dead ball, otherwise, he/she shall wait until the ball is dead and then inform the other umpire of the occurrence. The bowler's end umpire shall then warn the striker that the practice is unfair and indicate that this is a first and final warning. This warning shall apply throughout the innings. The umpire shall so inform the non-striker and each incoming batter.
The Laws state that a further breach of those conditions, the umpire shall: "disallow all runs to the batting side, return any not out batter to his/her original end, signal no ball, or wide to the scorers if applicable, award five penalty runs to the fielding side."
Given the implementation of the penalty, Muthusamy's offence was not the first of South Africa's innings.
The protected area is defined in Law 41.11 as "that area of the pitch contained within a rectangle bounded at each end by imaginary lines parallel to the popping creases and five foot in front of each, and on the sides by imaginary lines, one each side of the imaginary line joining the centres of the two middle stumps, each parallel to it and one foot from it."
South Africa declared in the following over after Mulder reached his century with a six. They posted a first innings total of 575-6. Despite beginning their innings with a five-run head start, Bangladesh lost four quick wickets in a nine over evening session. They closed on Day Two on 38-4.
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