India's left-handed wicketkeeper-batter Ishan Kishan has avoided a lengthy suspension on his attempt to deliberately appeal for a hit-wicket against New Zealand captain Tom Latham in the first ODI at Hyderabad.
A report in stuff.co.nz on Monday said under the ICC's Code of Conduct, Kishan could have been charged with a Level 3 offence of attempting to gain an unfair advantage - which leads to a suspension of between four and 12 ODIs or Twenty20 internationals.
The incident happened on the fourth ball of the 16th over when Latham, playing his first ball of the match, went deep in his crease and tapped off left-arm wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav through the leg side.
Kishan suddenly went up in appeal and was joined in the same by captain Rohit Sharma. The square seg umpire instantly took the decision upstairs, mainly unclear as to what exactly had happened.
Kishan and the Indian team appealed for Latham's dismissal, indicating that the batter had disturbed the bails by stepping on his stumps.
But replays checked by TV umpire K Ananthapadmanabhan showed Kishan had deliberately knocked a bail off with his glove - at his second attempt - long after Latham had hit the ball.
It took little time for him to declare Latham "Not Out" on the big screen. The report says Kishan was spoken to about the incident following the game by match referee Javagal Srinath, who also talked to Indian captain Rohit Sharma and coach Rahul Dravid.
"However, it's understood Srinath took no further action -- likely because neither umpire Anil Chaudhary nor Nitin Menon appears to have officially reported Kishan over the incident.
Srinath also spoke to stand-in Black Caps head coach Luke Ronchi and team management, with the touring side happy not to further pursue the matter," added the report.
In the ICC's Code of Conduct, Article 2.15 Attempting to gain an unfair advantage during an International Match' includes "deliberate attempts to deceive an Umpire".
It also adds: "When assessing the seriousness of the breach, consideration should be given to whether the conduct was deliberate, reckless and/or negligent on the part of the relevant player."
After the incident, on-air commentators Sunil Gavaskar and Murali Kartik weren''t impressed by Kishan's moves, even as the wicketkeeper-batter continued laughing.
"The cheeky grin is fine, but don't think that was the right thing to do," said Kartik, the former India left-arm spinner. Gavaskar, the legendary India batter, also said in the same vein.
"As a joke, it was okay, but then to go on to appeal, don't think that's the right thing to do. As a joke to maybe say, suggest to Tom Latham what had happened earlier when India was batting, that is understandable.
But to appeal, that is not on. That is not cricket." The incident Gavaskar referred to, also involving Latham, occurred in the 40th over of India's innings, when all-rounder Hardik Pandya was dismissed in freakish circumstances.
Hardik tried to cut off a Daryl Mitchell delivery through the third man but saw his off-stump bail being dislodged as the ball passed extremely close to the stumps and the on-field umpires referred the call to Ananthapadmanabhan.
Replays showed that Latham was standing up to the stumps and had his gloves very close to the bails, which looked to light up just after the ball had passed over the top of the stumps and was cleanly collected by the keeper, as Hardik was eventually dismissed for 38-ball 28.
After winning the first ODI by 12 runs in Hyderabad, India won the second match of the series by eight wickets in Raipur. With an unassailable 2-0 lead, India will now be aiming for a 3-0 sweep in the final match to happen in Indore on Tuesday.