The most celebrated rivalry of the Indian Premier League lived up to its expectations, as the unavailability of DRS in the opening overs of the game caused a furore among Chennai Super Kings’ fans. Many CSK supporters accused the organisers of giving undue advantage to Mumbai Indians at their home ground.
Due to a power outage at Wankhede Stadium, the DRS system was unavailable for the first few overs after CSK was invited to bat first. The need for the DRS arose on the second ball of the game, when Devon Conway was adjudged leg-before by the on-field umpire.
After consulting with his opening partner Ruturaj Gaikwad, Conway asked the umpire to review the decision. But the umpire couldn’t refer due to a power cut, and thus Conway had to walk back to the pavilion.
As per the replays, the ball seemed to be missing the leg-stump, and the opener would have survived in presence of DRS. It was a massive setback for Chennai as Conway has been their most productive batter from the last few games.
That, however, was not the end of it. In the next over, Robin Uthappa too couldn’t review his dismissal after getting pinned on the front leg by Jasprit Bumrah.
Even the former India cricketer Virender Sehwag expressed his annoyance over the whole issue. He also added that the DRS should not have been used in the entire match after CSK batters were unable to avail themselves in their innings.
“Is the generator only for stadium lights and not for the broadcasters and their systems? If the match was happening then DRS should definitely have been used. Or DRS should not have been used in the entire match because this was a disadvantage for Chennai. If Mumbai were batting first then they would have suffered,” Sehwag told Cricbuzz.
Harsha Bhogle, who was present in the stadium, clarified that the generator was available but some machines take time to reboot.
“When you lose power, the generators come on automatically and that is how the coverage continues. But some machines need to reboot and that takes time and that is when DRS is unavailable. This is the situation all over the world. It has nothing to do with budgets or planning,” wrote Bhogle on Twitter.
The fans, however, didn’t mince words, and blamed Chennai’s defeat on the power outage in the stadium.
