A rather bizarre incident took place in the Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2024 on Monday after UP Warriorz’ Chamari Athapaththu was controversialy dismissed LBW. Facing a leg-spinner, Athapaththu was hit on the pads by Georgia Wareham of Royal Challengers Bangalore. While the on-field umpire gave the decision in the favour of the batting team, RCB captain Smriti Mandhana decided to go for a review. Surprisingly, the ball-tracking showed that the delivery from Wareham would’ve hit the stumps, suggesting it was a googly and not a leg-spinner.
Seeing the decision converting from not-out to out, Athapaththu and her non-striking parnter Alyssa Healy were left perplexed, with the latter even shouting at the camera, saying ‘no way, no way’.
The decision can be seen as the turning point in the fortunes for the UP franchise that went on to lose the contest by 23 runs.
UP Warriorz coach couldn’t hold his frustration when asked about the controversial dismissal.
“You watch the ball with the naked eye, and you think it might pitch in line, just maybe,” Lewis said after the game. “Then you look at the ball rotating, and well, it’s rotating like a legspinner. There are not many legspinners that go towards that [other] side. It was a fascinating dismissal and a massive turning point for us in that game.”
The coach felt had Chamari been in the middle for a longer period, things could’ve ended in the Warriorz’s favour.
“Chamari is an amazing player and you saw how difficult it was when a left-hander and a right-hander were batting together, of the quality of Smriti [Mandhana] and Ellyse Perry. And they are able to access the short side of the ground. That was one of the reasons why we picked Chamari, to be able to access the short side of the ground for both the right and the left-hander. So to lose her in that way was incredibly frustrating.
“I don’t know the ins and outs of hawk-eye and the technology and how it works. But it was certainly an interesting passage of play, and something that we are pretty frustrated about.”
