Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni has been fined 50 per cent of his match fee for breaching the IPL Code of Conduct during his team's match against Rajasthan Royals in Jaipur.
Jaipur:
Dhoni admitted to the Level 2 offence 2.20 of the IPL's Code of Conduct and accepted the sanction.
The incident took place in the last over of the Chennai innings. With eight runs required off the last three balls, Ben Stokes bowled slower full toss.
While leg umpire Bruce Oxenford didn't raise his arm, Ulhas Gandhe did and the buzzer also went off in the stadium which signifies that a no-ball has been called. But seeing Oxenford's reaction, Gandhe then dropped his arm and changed the earlier call.
This saw MS Dhoni storm into the field and have a long chat with both the umpires. In fact, he was seen constantly saying that Gandhe did call it a no-ball before the decision was overturned.
Hailed as ‘Captain Cool’ during his trophy-laden years as India skipper, an unusually fired-up Dhoni stepped onto the field to remonstrate with umpire over a contentious no-ball call in a dramatic final over against Rajasthan Royals.
Rajasthan Royals all-rounder Stokes -- the bowler in the episode -- also joined in and a disappointed Dhoni finally walked back to the dugout.
But CSK had the last laugh as Santner hit a six off the last ball to win the game for Chennai.
The result took league leaders Chennai to 12 points from seven games, extending their lead over second-placed Kolkata Knight Riders to four points.
“MS Dhoni, the Chennai Super Kings captain, was fined 50 percent of his match fees for breaching the Indian Premier League’s Code of Conduct during his team’s match against Rajasthan Royals at Jaipur,” the league said in a statement.
“MS was after some clarity and it didn’t seem to be coming so he took the opportunity to go out and discuss it with the umpires. The rights and wrongs will be discussed by everybody,” Chennai head coach Stephen Fleming told reporters.
“He was certainly fired up about the way the decision was handled and why it was overturned... and he wanted to get it clarified at a key moment.” Rajasthan’s Jos Buttler was not sure if Dhoni did the right thing in approaching the umpires.
“Obviously tensions are running high in the IPL, every run counts and it was a big moment in the game,” the Englishman said. “But whether stepping on to the pitch is right, no, probably not.” Former England captain Michael Vaughan was more outspoken in his criticism of Dhoni.
“This is not a good look for the game,” Vaughan tweeted. “No place at all for a captain to storm onto the pitch from the dugout.”
While no mention of the episode was made during the post-match presentation by either Murali Karthick or Dhoni, former Australia pacer Brett Lee said that the CSK skipper should have avoided stepping onto the field.
(With inputs from Reuters)