Irrespective of Samson’s dismissal, Rajasthan Royals should have won: Kumar Sangakkara

New Delhi: After losing to Delhi Capitals by 20 runs at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in IPL 2024, Kumar Sangakkara, the director of cricket at Rajasthan Royals, believes his team should have won the match despite the dramatic dismissal of captain Sanju Samson.

Samson slammed a scintillating 46-ball 86, where he was timing all of his eight fours and six sixes like a dream. His fine knock came to an end on the fourth ball of the 16th over in dramatic circumstances when Shai Hope took a screamer of a catch at long-on, balancing himself just millimetres before the boundary ropes off Mukesh Kumar.

The third umpire Michael Gough checked a couple of angles without finding evidence of Hope’s boots coming in contact with the boundary rope, with the decision given as out. Samson had begun walking back after seeing the replays, but on seeing ‘OUT’ flashed on the screen, he walked up to the umpires in protest and even tried to take a review, but it was in vain.

“It depends on replays and angles; sometimes you think the foot has touched. It is a difficult one for third umpire to judge. The game was at a crucial stage; what happens in cricket is you have different perspectives. At the end of the day, you have to abide by the decision third umpire has made.

“If we have some other kind of opinion, we will share and sort it out with the umpires. Irrespective of that dismissal, we should have won the game. But Delhi played really well and fought till the end. They were very smart with their bowling at the back-end,” said Sangakkara in the post-match press conference.

Later on, Samson was fined 30 per cent of his match fees for a Level 1 offence under Article 2.8 of the IPL’s Code of Conduct, which talks about showing dissent at a decision made by the umpires. “On-field umpires have to go by what TV umpire say. At the end of the day, all the players have to abide by it. There’s a lot of pressure out in the middle on players and officials, so we try to sort it out the best way we can,” added Sangakkara.

Pravin Amre, the DC assistant coach, praised Hope’s athletic effort at the deep to take Samson’s catch. “In IPL, some momentums are very crucial and it was a decider moment in the game. Sanju was batting so well in the game and we have to give credit to the way Hope judged and balanced for the catch. IANS

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