Amelia Kerr incident adds fire to Ind-NZ clash that saw New Zealand women emerge as comfortable victors against India.
Amelia Kerr was the centre of an incident that will be a talking point for quite a while.
India was in the centre of an umpiring dispute during their women’s T20 World Cup encounter, which caused confusion and outrage. India lost their Friday match in Dubai by a margin of 58 runs vs New Zealand.
They felt they had a legitimate wicket – a run-out of Amelia Kerr. But it wasn’t to be, with the umpires deciding the ball was dead at the time of dismissal.
In the 14th over, Kerr attempted a second run but was caught short of her ground; this prompted an appeal for a run-out. On the final ball of the over, Kerr and Devine hit a ball towards long-off, and they took a single. Kerr and Devine tried grabbing a second, but Harmanpreet Kaur, the fielder, was ambling in with the ball in her hands.
Meanwhile, Deepti had requested and received her headgear back from the umpire. Harmanpreet blasted the ball in after spotting the batters running. Richa Ghosh collected it, and smashed the stumps with Kerr short of her crease.
However, Anna Harris and Jacqueline Williams, the umpires, declared the ball dead. Furthermore, nothing that happened after—in this example, the dismissal—would be considered to have happened while the ball was “in play”.
Speaking after the game, Jemimah Rodrigues said, “I was not there when the umpire gave the cap to Deepti, but, I mean, New Zealand were pretty sure that it was a double run and Amelia went for it, which showed that the over was not called out yet. And we all thought that, okay, we got that run-out.
“What if that run-out wouldn’t happen? Would they give us a two for that. So I think, honestly, that’s not in our control at the end. We respect the decision of the umpire and we were okay with that. But yeah, it’s a bit harsh when Amelia herself walked out because she knew she was out.”
But the enquiries didn’t stop there. Kerr ought to have been back on strike at the beginning of the next over as it was a single. Devine, though, was the one to take the hit and push a single against Renuka Singh. Kerr was out for 13 from 22 balls after hitting the ball to Pooja Vastrakar at extra cover in the next delivery.
“We know how important Amelia’s wicket was, at that moment it felt a little [like] why didn’t it go in our favour,” Rodrigues said. “But, at the same time, I think we did what we can.
“We spoke to the umpire. Then we had to accept the decision of the umpire and move on. So I think that’s what we did really well, that we just moved on from that. And we got her out pretty soon. So that works for us.”