Courtesy: WPL
During the second match of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2025, three contentious run out decisions in the closing stages from the third umpire Gayathri Venugopalan, all going in favour of Delhi Capitals (DC), allowed them to defeat Mumbai Indians (MI) in a last-ball thriller at the Kotambi Stadium in Vadodara. In all three instances, it seemed that the third umpire didn’t consider the LED stumps illuminating to be the point when stumps are understood to have been broken as per the rules of the competition.
In the 19th over of the DC innings during their pursuit of the 165-run target, when the match was in the balance, Shikha Pandey and Radha Yadav were involved in two separate mix-ups with debutant Niki Prasad. But, on both the occasions, the third umpire Gayathri Venugopalan deemed them not out by seemingly going on the call that the bail had to be completely removed from the groove of the LED stumps rather than when the lights illuminated firstly.
DC beat MI by two wickets on last ball of WPL 2025 match with help of run out decision
The biggest moment of the match came on the final ball of Delhi Capitals innings when they needed two runs in one ball with Arundhati Reddy on strike against Sanjeevan Sanjana. She managed to chip the ball over cover region, which Harmanpreet Kaur tidied up after it went over her head before throwing it flat to the wicket-keeper Tania Bhatia, who broke the LED stumps as Arundhati Reddy dived full-stretch to make her ground.
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On replay, with the third umpire Gayathri Venugopalan under prime focus, it could be seen that the frame in which the LED stumps lit up, the bat was on the line. But, just like the previous two contentious decisions, the third umpire looked at more frames before deciding that Arundhati Reddy had got past the finishing line before the wicket was completely dislodged, handing Delhi Capitals a last-ball win over Mumbai Indians.
Moreover, the Appendix D of the WPL 2025 playing conditions, addressing the aforementioned method, stated that, “Where LED wickets are used, the moment at which the wicket has been put down shall be deemed to be the first frame in which the LED lights are illuminated and subsequent frames show the bail permanently removed from the top of the stumps.”
