The memories of the 2011 World Cup final came rushing back after the toss faux pas at the Gujarat Titans-Rajasthan Royals Qualifier 2 match at the New Chandigarh Stadium on Friday evening.
What happened was that GT captain Shubman Gill flipped the coin but his counterpart Riyan Parag‘s call couldn’t be heard by match referee Prakash Bhatt, which meant it had to happen all over again. RR eventually won and decided to bat but Gill looked really upset. The only explanation could be that the first time the coin had fallen in his favour.
It is something that doesn’t happen often in cricket, let alone the Indian Premier League. The most famous match to witness this is the 2011 World Cup final between India and Sri Lanka at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on April 2. New Zealand’s Jeff Crowe couldn’t hear Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara’s call and the coin was flipped again. What was interesting was that at the first instance, India captain MS Dhoni thought he had won the toss and indicated he wanted to bat first, only to be asked by match referee Crowe for a repeat since he didn’t hear it.
In IPL history, a re-toss has happened a couple of times before but there were different reasons. Broadcaster Nick Knight was still making introductions in 2022 when RCB captain Faf du Plessis, in a hurry for sure, flicked the coin up. He was asked to do it again. Incidentally, Rajasthan Royals were involved in that game too.
Now this is getting a bit freakish. There was another toss embarrassment last season which also involved Rajasthan Royals. The match was against Lucknow Super Giants and their then captain Rishabh Pant forgot to call it while the coin was still in the air. It had to be redone.
Last year, in the women’s Asia Cup a toss controversy happened at the India-Pakistan match in Dambulla, Sri Lanka. Fatima Sana called it “tails” but the referee heard it “heads”, which it was and Pakistan sent India into bat. The error was not caught immediately and by the time people realised it, India’s innings was already underway. So it couldn’t be redone.
Ravi Shastri baffled too!
Anyway, the blame should lie with Parag for not saying it out loud. Broadcaster and former cricketer Ravi Shastri didn’t hear it either and he looked quite flummoxed. He looked at the referee and was baffled when he realised what had happened. Gill was quite upset and didn’t try to hide that after the re-toss. He later ran into BCCI president Mithun Manhas on the way out of the field and it appeared he related the whole incident to the former Delhi batsman. Manhas looked amused!
