Mumbai : Rajasthan Royals’ batsman Robin Uthappa violated ICC rules during the IPL’s 12th match in Dubai on Wednesday. During the Kolkata’s batting, Robin was captured using saliva to shine the ball. A cricket fan shared this video of Uthappa on social media. In the shared tweet, he is seen applying saliva on a ball which is a violation of International Cricket Council (ICC) guidelines related to COVID-19.
The incident took place after the fifth ball of the third over on Wednesday when Uthappa dropped a catch of Sunil Narine. He was seen applying saliva after catching the ball and after this the video became a topic of discussion on social media. The IPL has not yet released any statement regarding this incident. The ICC banned the use of saliva to shine the ball in June this year due to the COVID-19 epidemic.
As per the standard operating procedure (SOP) of the game, ‘if the player puts saliva on the ball, the umpire will deal with this situation and will be generous during the initial phase of keeping pace with the players’ new process, but further on such an event, the team will be warned.’
The ICC guidelines state, ‘A team can be issued two warnings in each innings, but a five-run penalty will be imposed for the continued use of saliva on the ball. Whenever saliva is used on the ball, the umpires must clean the ball.’
Robin Uthappa has been the part of KKR’s team for many years before playing for Rajasthan. This time when KKR left him, Rajasthan made a bid of 3 crores and bought him. Uthappa could not do anything special for Rajasthan in the match against KKR and scored only 2 runs in 7 balls.