MUMBAI: The prestigious Marylebone Cricket Club, the upholder of the rules of the game, on Thursday defended the controversial decision of the umpires to call Kolkata Knight Riders batsman Angkrish Raghuvanshi obstruction of play during the recent IPL 2026 match. The London-based club, which is based at the historic Lord’s Cricket Ground, issued a “legal clarification” on the obstruction of the pitch, saying Raghuvanshi’s dismissal met the following criteria: “A batsman who changes direction while running, particularly a change of direction on a pitch, or takes any other route that is not the fastest to get to the other end, is a willful act.”Push boundaries with our YouTube channel. Subscribe now!The controversial incident took place during KKR’s match against Lucknow Supergiants at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow last Sunday. Raghuvansh went for a quick single but was sent back by his partner. He turned, dived to get his footing, but was hit by the ball as the pass came in. The LSG fielder appealed and after review, third umpire Rohan Pandit ruled him out. Pandit ruled that Raghuvanshi “changed the direction of his movement” after seeing the ball being thrown towards him.Explaining the law on ‘obstruction of a pitch’, the MCC said, “Article 37.1.1 states that a batsman is deemed to have obstructed a pitch if he “deliberately attempts by word or action to obstruct or distract the fielding side”. This means that the obstruction must have been intentional, but it is difficult to establish. There has long been an explanation for this exact issue, namely that the batsman runs when the ball is bowled, an explanation published in Tom Smith’s Cricket Umpires and Scoring, MCC The official interpretation of the rules of cricket exists and has been accepted for many years. It stated: “A batsman who changes direction while running, especially a batsman who changes direction while running on a pitch, or takes any other route that is not the fastest to reach the other end, is a deliberate act.”The MCA said Raghuvanshi’s case for “obstruction of the pitch” was made under the law as he “deliberately” changed from the offside side to the leg side of the pitch while running between the wickets. “Raguvansh clearly meets these criteria. When he sets out for his run, he is on the offside side of the wicket. When the ball reaches the fielder, he runs across the middle of the field – which is not where he should be running anyway – and then turns and runs back to the leg side, placing himself between the ball and the wicket. By definition, this is an intentional act. If he had stayed out, in an offside position, the ball wouldn’t have hit him and there wouldn’t even have been an issue of blocking. If he starts running down the leg side and then turns back to the ground on the same side before being hit by the ball, he won’t be out – he will be in the way, but not intentionally. It was the deliberate overstepping of boundaries that led to his downfall,” the MCC explained. The MCC also clarified that penalties like “pitch obstruction” do not take into account whether the batsman would have survived without the obstruction. “It was suggested that Raghuvanshi should not have been dismissed as he would have stood even if the throw did not hit him. However, this was not a consideration. Whether the obstruction was likely to be dismissed is not a criterion for obstruction of the field as long as the obstruction was not for the purpose of preventing a catch,” the MCC statement concluded.
