KKR vs RCB: Was Virat Kohli out or not? Here’s what you need to know about controversial moment at Eden Gardens

Rana delivered a full toss that was dipping at Kohli and deceived him in flight. Until then, Kohli had been batting superbly, but he didn’t read this, and only managed to guide the ball back to Rana in his follow-through. He immediately signalled for a review, but these decisions don’t come under DRS. The umpires were going to review it anyway.

With all the controversies so far in this IPL over umpiring, the one area where there should be no ambiguity are waist-high no-balls. Given how these decisions often go, the row over the dismissal was perhaps understandable because Kohli met the ball quite high. But one thing that the review system in IPL has done this year is that – like offside with VAR in football – there is no subjectivity to waist- high no-balls. It is not a judgment call, simply a yes / no decision.

Playing conditon 41.7.1 states that any delivery which passes or would have passed, without pitching, above waist height of the striker standing upright at the popping crease is to be deemed to be unfair. So how high Kohli, who was quite forward, met the ball doesn’t matter. The calculations shown on screen were clear too, the ball ‘would have passed’ below Kohli’s waist, given the dip that Rana got, intentional or otherwise.

According to ESPNCricinfo, “Hawk-Eye has measured the waist height for every player this IPL, a piece of information that is available in their database. The third umpire has no role to play during the review, with measurements being worked out by an automated system installed by Hawk-Eye.” So as the graphic showed, Kohli’s registered waist height is 1.04m and the ball would have been at 0.92m at the crease. When Kohli calms down, perhaps he’d see it too, that the decision made by the TV umpire was indeed fair.