Kieron Pollard got into a disagreement with umpires in the last over IPL 2019 final (Source: IPL)The Indian Premier League 2019 final witnessed quite a bit of drama in the last over of Mumbai Indians’ innings. The incident took place after Dwayne Bravo bowled a widish ball to Kieron Pollard who expected it to be called an illegitimate delivery. This was the second straight delivery that Pollard expected to be called a wide, but the call never came from umpire Nitin Menon. In response, Pollard dramatically threw his bat in the air. The two umpires on the field then got together and diffused the situation.
On the next ball, Pollard, in protest, took strike near the tramlines but then walked further across – even leaving the pitch – before Bravo pulled out. Noticing the rebellion, umpires Ian Gould and Menon walked up to Pollard to have a quick word with him and understand why he did that.
Pollard is no stranger to getting into disputes with the umpires. In 2015, he taped his mouth on the field when the umpire questioned his constant banter with Chris Gayle and told him to keep quiet.
On Sunday, after the incident, Pollard ensured that he made every delivery count. He went for a couple of runs on the next delivery. Even though Mitchell McClenaghan got run out, Pollard was on strike. He struck two boundaries off the remaining deliveries and furiously walked off the field.
The all-rounder came to Mumbai’s rescue when they were losing wickets in death overs. He walked in to bat when MI were 89/4 in 13th over. At the end of the innings, he was the top-scorer for MI with 41 runs off 25 deliveries, including three fours and three sixes.
His unbeaten knock helped MI post a respectable total of 149/8 when it looked like they were set to suffer a major batting collapse.
