Matt Renshaw's Attempt to Humour Costs Five Penalty Runs for Queensland

In latest developments from the Sheffield Shield, Queensland opener Matt Renshaw’s error cost his team five penalty runs.

He now becomes the second Queenslander this season to get penalised five runs for an unusual rule breach.

The incident occurred during the Brisbane-based team’s clash against Western Australia. Wicketkeeper Jimmy Pierson, on his pursuit for the ball in the square leg region, dropped his gloves near the slip fielders.

Renshaw, placed at first slip, thought it would be funny to wear the gloves and grasp the ball thrown by the wicketkeeper from square leg.

However, the umpires, aware of the rules spotted the unintentional error from Renshaw and awarded five runs to Western Australia.

According to Rule 27.1 of the Laws of Cricket, it states that “a wicketkeeper is the only fielder permitted to wear gloves”.

The out of favour Australian opener claimed he was unaware of the rules and tagged the incident as a harmless mistake.

“The glove dropped right next to me so I thought it’d be quite funny to put the glove on and try and take a catch with the glove on. I didn’t really think of the rule at the time, I just thought it’d be quite funny. But the umpires came together and said it was five penalty runs,” suggested Matt Renshaw while speaking to cricket.co.au.

Renshaw promises to be more aware of the rules henceforth

The Queensland batsman reckoned the incident might have been perceived differently had the match been evenly contested. Western Australia lost the game by a whopping margin of 211 runs.

“I know that you’re not supposed to do it, but I thought it was just one of those frowned upon things. Thankfully it wasn’t a close match because if it was, (coach) Wade Seccombe might not have let me back in the rooms,” added the left-hander.

“We actually weren’t sure if that was a reportable offence. It’s not. It’s similar to the fake fielding that we had at the start of the year,” advocated the 21-year old.

“I’m going to learn a lot more rules in my cricket career, probably. I learnt one last week that you can’t warm up bowling parallel to the wicket. I found that one quite interesting,” concludes Matt Renshaw.

Here is the video –