Rishabh Pant suspended: Sourav Ganguly tried to blame Rajasthan Royals’ Sanju Samson; This is what BCCI said

Delhi Capitals (DC) will face Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) on May 12 in a must-win game. A loss in this game could mean elimination. However, Delhi will be without Rishabh Pant in the game. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has suspended the DC captain for one match for speeding slowly in the game against Rajasthan Royals (RR).

With DC likely to overtake Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and move into the top four for the first time in the tournament with a win against RCB, Pant’s absence will certainly weigh on the Capitals.

The DC management, which includes cricket legends like Sourav Ganguly and Ricky Ponting, tried its best to reverse Pant’s ban.

Sourav Ganguly argued that the RR batters scored 13 sixes in the previous game. However, the team was only given additional time to win the ball three times instead of six times. The former Indian team captain also claimed that the three minutes given to review Sanju Samson’s dismissal was too short, especially as Samson protested and took more than three minutes.

According to Ponting, DC’s bowlers played several wide balls towards the end of the innings, giving the team no time to make up for the delays caused by these wide balls.

The document mentions that Rishabh Pant attributed the slow over rate during the match to the extreme heat that day and noted that it was the hottest day in Delhi.

Why were the arguments rejected?

However, the BCCI rejected the Capitals’ arguments. In the debate over the time taken to fetch the ball, BCCI CEO Hemang Amin argued that despite DC batters hitting 12 sixes, the Royals were still keeping up with the over rate.

Amin also noted that the Pants did not submit written arguments even though they were entitled to do so. BCCI argued that DC had not demonstrated that the extension granted by the umpire was not sufficient.