The league stage of IPL 2019 concluded on Sunday with the MI vs KKR match at Mumbai. MI’s 9 wicket victory meant Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Capitals and Sunrisers Hyderabad qualified for the playoffs slated to begin from May 7 at Chennai.

In between 44 days of non-stop cricket in IPL 2019, there were a few controversial moments rocked the tournament. Some of them even went on to grab the headlines and some could well have been avoided.

Here is the list of top 5 controversies of IPL 2019 so far.

How about renaming ‘Mankad’ to Ashwin?

R Ashwin’s ‘Mankad’ act to dismiss Jos Buttler is perhaps the biggest controversy of IPL 2019. During the KXIP vs RR match, Ashwin stopped on his delivery stride, seeing Jos Buttler taking a head start at the non-striker’s end and whipped the bails off. Buttler was given out and he made no attempts to hide his anger while walking off. Buttler’s dismissal triggered a collapse and RR lost the match by 14 runs despite being in a dominant position till the time Buttler was there.

That Ashwin did not warn Buttler before Mankading him created more controversy. The KXIP captain was bashed from all corners, especially former English cricketers for his ‘unsporting act’. He received some support from the Indian counterparts, who argued that Ashwin’s act was well within the laws of the game.

It did not end there. Ashwin was mocked by the likes of Virat Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan later on in the tournament.

Captain (not so) cool

MS Dhoni was fined 50% of his match fee for breaching IPL’s Code of Conduct. Yes, you read that right and majority believe he got away with the lightest of punishments. What exactly did he do? He stormed onto the field after the on-field umpire refused to give a no-ball despite having his hand up. It was the last over of the match and CSK needed 8 from 3 balls to win. The match came to a standstill because of Dhoni’s pitch invasion.

To be fair to Dhoni, it was a waste-high full toss, even the bowler Ben Stokes had a sheepish smile on his face. Having said that, Dhoni’s act was by no means can be justified and it was the least expected from someone like him. Fortunately for CSK, Mitchell Santner sealed the match with a six off the last ball.

No ball… But the umpire didn’t see

“We are playing at the IPL level and not playing club cricket. The umpires should have had their eyes open. That is a ridiculous call (last ball),” said a furious Virat Kohli after S Ravi missed a clear no ball off Lasith Malinga in the last ball of the match between RCB and MI.

RCB lost the match by 6 runs. However, after the final ball was delivered, replays showed Malinga had overstepped, which was not spotted by the umpire.

RCB needed 7 off the final ball, and had Malinga’s breach been called out, the result could well have been different.

T20 match going on for 2 days?

Slow over rates have been a glaring problem of this IPL. So much so that on a few occasions the match trickled past midnight despite there being on-time (8 PM IST) start. The problem was noted by the IPL governing council and some reports suggest this was one of the reasons behind the decision of changing playoff and final timings to 7.30 PM IST.

All’s not good in KKR

Andre Russell came out in public to criticize KKR team management’s faulty tactics. After getting off to a good start, KKR slipped to the bottom half of the table by losing six matches on the trot. Russell blamed ‘bad decisions’ from the team management. KKR captain Dinesh Karthik too received a lot of flak for not promoting Russell up the batting order. As it turned out, KKR were knocked out of the tournament and assistant coach Simon Katich too accepted the feuds in the dressing room.

First Published: May 06, 2019 18:36 IST