Mohammad Nawaz might just find himself at the top of the ‘ridiculous dismissals’ chart at the Twenty20 World Cup in Australia.
The Pakistan batter was left rather red-faced when losing his wicket in his side’s victory over South Africa in Sydney on Thursday night.
Batting first in their must-win match at the SCG, Pakistan slipped to 95-5 on the last ball of the 12th over after all-rounder Nawaz seemingly had little knowledge of the laws when trapped in front by Tabraiz Shamsi for 28 off 22 balls.
The 28-year-old, playing in his 52nd T20I, swept a delivery from the left-arm wrist spinner and set off for a run, as Kiwi umpire Chris Gaffaney raised his finger to give him out lbw.
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With batting partner Iftikhar Ahmed sending him back, Nawaz found himself runout by a direct hit from Lungi Ngidi at third man, and left the field fuming at his team-mate.
But there sould have been no reason for him to be walking back to the dugout in the first place.
Replays showed Nawaz had got an inside edge on his shot and therefore would have been able to overturn Gaffaney’s lbw decision via the DRS.
Cameron Spencer/Getty Images
Tabraiz Shamsi, left, celebrates the wicket of Mohammad Nawaz, right, in a bizarre dismissal at the SCG on Thursday night.
Surely the left-hander would have been aware of the bat contact before pad, but it appeared that Nawaz believed the runout would have over-rided the lbw anyway.
However, the laws state that the ball is deemed dead once an umpire has given an lbw decision, so there was actually not able to be any runout anyway.
In the end the bizarre dismissal didn’t end up costing Pakistan, and in fact may have in a strange way helped them change the course of the game, as that brought eventual man-of-the-match Shadab Khan to the crease, who went on to blast 52 off 22 in what turned into a 33-run win via the DLS method.
