Phil Salt watched from behind the stumps when Virat Kohli offered a simple return catch to Harshit Rana on Sunday at the Eden.

Kohli found himself in a tangle while dealing with the dipping ball. The former Royal Challengers Bengaluru captain was livid as his appeal for a no-ball had been turned down after he had reviewed the on-field umpire’s call.

According to Salt, the Kolkata Knight Riders feel they “may have got away with one there”.

“It’s a split opinion, we know that. From our point of view, we feel like we may have got away with one there. It’s the rub of the greens, one of those calls... And I would agree with one of those calls.

“They (authorities) brought that data in — the no-ball data — for exactly that purpose,” the Knight Riders opener said on the sidelines of the Knight Golf at the RCGC on Monday.

According to the new Hawk-Eye ball-tracking technology, the ball would have passed the batsman at 0.92 metres from the ground if Kohli was upright at the crease. The height of Kohli’s waist had been measured beforehand at 1.04 metres, which means the ball would have passed below his waist had he been in his crease and not outside it, which makes the delivery from Harshit a legitimate one.

If the data and technology in use are “more precise” and help in getting the right decision, they need to be backed then, Salt stated. “I feel, like in 12 months’ time, maybe there’ll be some sort of a review. Is it working? Is it not working? Is it a new thing to the game?

“But personally, from a player’s point of view, any time you’re using data and technology to be more precise and get the right decisions, I think that’s a good thing for the game,” the England batsman, currently No.2 in the ICC T20I rankings among batters, explained.

The narrow one-run win over the Royal Challengers on Sunday helped the Knights reclaim the second position in the IPL 2024 points table. And for that, Salt has had a role to play for his blistering 14-ball 48 that gave the Knights a headstart in the Powerplay.

Batting alongside Sunil Narine at the top has certainly made Salt’s job easier, he acknowledged. “Sunil has got a very different sort of skill-set when he’s opening the batting as opposed to up and down the order.

“I suppose one of the good things for me is, it takes the pressure off and I don’t have to strike at 200 in my first 10 balls. Normally, one of us gets going and the other one feeds the strike.”

Starc support

The Knights coaching staff and the rest of the franchise management gave their full support to pace spearhead and the IPL’s costliest player ever Mitchell Starc, who was hit for three sixes by Karn Sharma in the final over on Sunday. That had almost cost KKR the game.

“We don’t think of it from an investment standpoint... We just felt that an addition to the team like Starc would add a lot of value, which it has.

“There are times when the games are up and down. Everybody gets taken to the cleaners at times, and there are other times when they come and just do their thing and win games for the team,” KKR CEO and managing director Venky Mysore said.