Fakhar Zaman was the lone warrior for Pakistan in the recently concluded 2nd ODI against South Africa where the visitors lost the match by 17 runs.
He scored 193 runs and was looking comfortable to score his second double hundred in ODI along with sealing the victory for Men in Green was outplayed by the smartness of Proteas wicketkeeper Quinton De Kock.
As the incident happened on the first ball of 50th Over where Zaman hit a ball in the long-off region and was looking to take two runs in crunch moments of the game but Markaram who fielded the ball superbly threw the ball back to De Kock and unfortunately for Fakhar it was a direct throw.
But the Tv camera caught De Kock’s intention where the wicketkeeper was signaling to Markram to throw the ball at the nonstriker’s end to distract Zaman and eventually the ball hit the stumps in the region where Fakhar was running. However, the act by De Kock was criticized heavily on social media.
However, MCC recently came with their statement on this entire matter on their official Twitter account where they shared the rules that in case a batsman gets obstructed by the fielding side what will be the repercussions that the bowling side will have to face.
They added it was totally up to umpires to take the call as the ball belongs to their armory.
Law 41.5.1 states: “It is unfair for any fielder wilfully to attempt, by word or action, to distract, deceive or obstruct either batsman after the striker has received the ball.”
Explaining further, the MCC tweet added: “The Law is clear, with the offense being an ATTEMPT to deceive, rather than the batsman actually being deceived. It’s up to the umpires to decide if there was such an attempt. If so, then it’s Not out, 5 Penalty runs + the 2 they ran, and batsmen choose who faces next ball.”
