‘Unreal no-ball’ in Abu Dhabi T10 League makes David Warner question: ‘Was this a free hit?’ - WATCH

Cricket has seen plenty of good, bad and ugly stuff happening worldwide, with players indulging in suspicious activities time and again. One such example made headlines late on Friday (Nov 22) night, with the instance occurring in the Abu Dhabi T10 League, where the UAE seamer Hazrat Bilal, playing for Morrisville Samp Army, overstepped way too much from the popping crease, so much so that the camera frame had to be adjusted to show replays.

Meanwhile, whenever an unusual case of front-foot no-ball controversy emerges across any format, fans bring back Mohammed Amir’s reference from the infamous 2010 Lord’s Test match, where he and two other Pakistani players were found guilty of foul play, later serving respective bans. Though Amir returned to cricket later, the degree of his no-ball looks tiny compared to this one in the T10 League.

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Batting first after losing the toss, the Samp Army scored a whopping 135 for one in ten overs, with Faf du Plessis hitting an unbeaten 75 off 32 balls. The incident occurred during the second innings, when Bilal, coming into bowl the fourth over, started with a dot and a wide before dismissing Zeeshan Abid on his third ball.

The right seamer bowled a dot ball to Asif Ali before overstepping on the next delivery, much to everyone’s surprise, including the ongoing field Nigel Llong. He began with a shorter run-up, leading him to overstep massively, with his left heel falling over the line by more than a foot.

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Following the no-ball, Bilal’s teammates were seen laughing over it; while Faf smiled at the replay, Reece Topley chuckled at it standing on the sidelines.

Meanwhile, former Australia great David Warner brought this up on his social media handle, jokingly asking if the batter got the free hit for this. He wrote, "The @AbudhabiT10 league 😂😂😂 was this a free hit??"

Corruption in T10 League

While Bilal’s no-ball raised eyebrows worldwide, there was this instance earlier this year where Pune Devils batting coach Ashar Zaidi, along with team owners Parag Sanghavi and Krishan Kumar Choudhary, were banned by the ICC after being found guilty of corrupt activities during the 2021 edition of the tournament.

The ICC banned Zaidi from all cricket for five years for "directly or indirectly soliciting, inducing, enticing, instructing, persuading, encouraging or intentionally facilitating any participant to breach Article 2.1 (corruption)", and "failing to disclose to the anti-corruption officials the full details of any approaches or invitations received to engage in corrupt conduct under the code", whileSanghavi and Choudhary are banned for two years each.

(With inputs from agencies)