Sai darshan kumar

Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Rajasthan Royals (RR) all-rounder Nitish Rana stated the on-field umpires are very well within their rights to randomly check sizes of the bats used by the batters during IPL 2025 matches, provided they have the time to do.

In RR’s nine-wicket defeat to Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in Jaipur, bats of Rana and Shimron Hetmyer were checked for their dimensions by on-field umpire Nitin Menon, who had a white triangular plastic gauge in hand. When RCB were batting, on-field umpire Sai Darshan Kumar inspected bats of Phil Salt and Devdutt Padikkal.

The random bat checks, as previously reported by IANS on Tuesday, is now going to be a routine affair in the rest of IPL 2025. “There is a huge shortage of time in a T20 game. If the umpires have that much time to check it, I guess it is their right to check it. Even my bat was checked. In that game, 60-70% of the batter's bats were checked. So, I think it is fair enough. We don't have any say in it and it is not controllable. So, how will we control it?”