Stokes' folly goes unnoticed as KL Rahul gets dismissed off a no-ball

With Virat Kohli and KL Rahul opening the batting in a T20 game, Royal Challengers Bangalore fans were in for a treat: the dynamic duo looked set to reprise their IPL roles against England.

The dream came crashing down when Kohli got run-out after a terrible miscommunication with his partner, and KL Rahul got out to Ben Stokes - of an unspotted no-ball!

In the eighth over of the Indian innings, Ben Stokes, with his stock delivery that angles into the batsman, dismantled KL Rahul’s stumps. The 24-year old, who, after a slow start, had got going with a couple of big hits, went for an ugly slog and found his stumps cartwheeling.

The English bowlers started celebrating and KL Rahul trudged back: the umpire, however, did not notice that Ben Stokes had overstepped while delivering the ball.

There has been a lot of furore about umpiring standards in the current T20I series: with the English team being on the receiving end of two glaring errors on the part of on-field umpire Shamshuddin during the second T20I at Nagpur. During the India innings, Virat Kohli was caught right in front of the crease, but was given out, while towards the end of the match, Joe Root was given LBW at a crucial juncture, even though the ball was clearly too high to hit the stumps.

Just on the eve of the Bengaluru T20I, Shamshuddin withdrew from on-field duties, and was replaced by Nitin Menon. However, the glaring no-ball wasn’t spotted by his partner,Anil Chaudhary. The 51-year old Chaudhary, who hails from Delhi, has the experience of officiating in nine ODIs and 15 T20Is.

Surprisingly, in the last T20I, Jasprit Bumrah and Amit Mishra took wickets off no-balls: their celebrations were cut short by prompt referral from the on-field umpires. This time, however, the mistake went completely unnoticed - which begs the question whether the third umpire should have more role to play in the game.

Last year, former New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum had expressed his displeasure at the current system of reviewing no-balls, stating that there is no problem in giving the TV umpire full control over calling no-balls. "Maybe that's something that needs to be looked at, just to make sure you get the right decision all the time. I'm guessing it's probably a bit easier as well for an umpire to look at the other end rather than having to look down and then look back up. But other people will make those decisions," he had said.

Although Suresh Raina continued from where KL Rahul left, things could have been a bit different if the on-field umpire had seen Stokes’ heel sticking out past the popping crease.