County consider umpire appeal
Source -
northantsnews.com
The ECB say they will talk to umpires Graham Burgess and Peter Hartley before deciding if they will take any action after the controversy in the Steelbacks' last-ball defeat against Somerset Sabres.
The ECB say they will talk to umpires Graham Burgess and Peter Hartley before deciding if they will take any action after the controversy in the Steelbacks' last-ball defeat against Somerset Sabres.
David Sales was forced to bowl the last over on Wednseday after the umpires apparently changed their minds and decided Johann Louw couldn't bowl because two bowlers had already bowled three overs for Northants.
The Steelbacks captain says the umpires told him the one ball that Steffan Jones bowled as a replacement for the injured Damien Wright wouldn't count as an over.
But after complaints from the Somerset batsmen and intervention from their scorer, the umpires changed their minds.
Somerset got the eight runs off the last over to win the game. It left Sales fuming and saying the umpires "incompetence" cost the Steelbacks victory.
Northants are considering making a complaint to the ECB about the incident and believe it will be included in the umpires report.
But ECB cricket operations manager Alan Fordham said he knew nothing about the incident and wouldn't be making any decisions until he had spoken to the umpires.
Fordham said: "I'm not going to speculate on something I don't know about. This is the first I have heard about it."
"I need to hear from the parties involved and that means talking to the umpires and Northants."
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