Kolkata Knight Riders’ (KKR) all-rounder Rovman Powell didn’t mince his words as he said that the on-field umpires messed up by not referring Digvesh Rathi’s catch at the boundary ropes to the third umpire. The incident happened in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 fixture between the KKR and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) at the Eden Gardens on Thursday, and as soon as Rathi caught the ball, opening batter Finn Allen had to walk back for just 9 off 8 balls in the second over of the bowling of Prince Yadav.
Prince bowled a back-of-a-length delivery, and Allen heaved it across the line only to get a top edge. The ball flew down to third man (Digvesh). It seemed the ball would travel the distance, but Rathi steadied himself on the edge of the boundary cushion and stood sideways to his left to take the catch with both hands.
Rathi was extremely close to the boundary rope, and the umpires seemed happy with everything that transpired; hence, Allen walked back to the hut. The decision wasn’t referred to the third umpire, and replays later indicated that Rathi might have just stepped on the cushion. However, nothing concrete could be made out from the replays.
After KKR suffered a heartbreaking three-wicket defeat at the Eden Gardens, Powell said the on-field umpires should have referred the decision to the third umpire; however, he also said his team would not use this as an excuse after the defeat.
“Definitely (more angles should have been looked at). We talked about that when he came off. We thought we had seen in the IPL that the umpires have gone upstairs for lesser things, and that are not as close as that. Maybe it was a blunder on their part, but we’re not going to look into that and say that is what cost us two points tonight,” Rovman told reporters in the post-match press conference.
The Mukul Choudhary blitz
Batting first, KKR posted 181 runs on the board. For most of the encounter, it seemed that the hosts would walk away with a win, considering LSG lost Aiden Markram, Mitchell Marsh, Rishabh Pant and Nicholas Pooran for not many runs on the board.
However, lower-order batter Mukul Choudhary completely came out of the syllabus to play an unbeaten 54-run knock off 27 balls to take LSG over the line on the last ball of the game with three wickets in hand. KKR are yet to register a win in the IPL 2026 edition, and the side has already faced two defeats at their home ground, Eden Gardens.
“It’s very disappointing. You want to make Kolkata, you want to make Eden Gardens as your fortress. It’s your home, it’s your home where you have your fans behind you. So it always feels good to win at home. But, unfortunately, tonight we weren’t able to,” said Powell.
“A lot of credit has to be given to the boys. I think after scoring 181, we believed that we could have won the game. But credit to the youngster, he batted really well,” he added.
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