T20 World Cup: Why were USA penalised five runs during the match against India?

India were beginning to mount a comeback during the middle overs of their run-chase in Wednesday’s T20 World Cup Group A match against the USA in New York. Suryakumar Yadav and Shivam Dube had steadied the ship for the Men in Blue after they had lost senior batters Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma for single-digit scores, the former departing for a golden duck — his first ever in a T20 World Cup.

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The turning point in the Indian chase, however, came in the 16th over in which the Men in Blue were awarded five penalty points due to the USA’s own mistake. The Americans were able to maintain some level of pressure even when SKY and Dube were starting to mount a comeback.

The penalty runs, however, appeared to harm the United States, whose shoulders suddenly began to drop with stand-in skipper Aaron Jones, filling in for Monank Patel for this game, no longer able to inspire his teammates. Surya and Dube made the most of the situation to not only chase the target down but had plenty of wickets and deliveries in hand, as a result.

Why did the umpires award five penalty runs to India?

The reason why the umpires slapped a five-run penalty on the United States was their inability to begin a new over with 60 seconds of the final ball of the previous over. And in the case of the Americans on Wednesday, Jones and Co were guilty of the same not once but thrice during India’s chase, leading to the co-hosts attracting the penalty.

And in a format with wafer-thin margins such as T20, a five-run penalty can be a massive blow for the team that finds itself at the receiving end of the implementation of the ‘Stop Clock’ rule that had been introduced by the ICC by December last year in order to get matches to finish within stipulated time by getting bowlers to bowl an over within the prescribed time limit.