For a point of the minute, let us assume who will be the most vulnerable person on the field, to the ball, to the players’ aggression and the decision making, well, it is Umpires. They are those people who place themselves head straight to the batsmen and God knows when a ball hits them. But, if it hits them, then yes, the aftermath will be saddening in any way.
Earlier, there are moments when umpires faced the wrath of aggressive batsman both with hands and with the ball, it might not be worse with hands, but, when it is with the ball, we have to assume near-death situations.
These are the days of aggressive cricket. Players are tuning themselves into being angry and high-spirited all the time. Skipper Kohli is all enough to be seen so.
Keeping all this mind, umpires have to watch out for their lives too. There have been times when umpires are given their own helmets so that they can protect themselves against hard balls coming their way. And that was exactly the case when Virat Kohli came on to bat in the one-off T20 against Sri Lanka.
Situation:
During the final one-off, Kohli undoubtedly was in a prime form, Malinga was bowling and it was going extremely well for Kohli. He got hold of a fuller one and hit it straight back to the direction that it came from. Umpire Ruchira Palliyaguruge will count his lucky stars and his reflexes as he was able to get out of the way just in the nick of time, which is barely milliseconds.
Watch the video here:
He successfully escaped the delivery by just a few inches and he saw the funny side of it. Kohli did enquire if the umpire was fine and it was a light moment that could have gotten serious.