India to lodge official complaint against umpire Kulkarni

The India team is not happy with Vineet Kulkarni's umpiring, and the captain's post-match report has remarks critical of the official, ESPNcricinfo has learnt. Vinod Phadke, the team manager, said the umpiring was not good, and that he was going to complain about Kulkarni in his report at the end of the series in addition to the captain's remarks, which he said he has not seen.

"I have not seen the captain's report, but I am going to mention him in my report," Phadke told ESPNcricinfo. "It is obvious to everybody that the umpiring has not been good."

Phadke's remarks led to the ICC charging him* with making "inappropriate comments."

India team manager Vinod Phadke charged with inappropriate comments. Hearing to take place after today's #INDvSA ODI.

— ICC Media (@ICCMediaComms) October 14, 2015

At the end of the first Twenty20 international against South Africa, in Dharmasala, captain MS Dhoni had brought up the umpiring issue unprovoked at the post-match presentation. "We did not have quite a few decisions going our way and sometimes these can change the match," Dhoni said. "It could have been different if we could have got Duminy out early."

Dhoni was referring to the lbw appeal against JP Duminy in South Africa's successful chase of 200. Duminy looked pretty plumb to a Bhuvneshwar Kumar yorker, but survived. Had Duminy been given out then, it would have reduced South Africa to 157 for 4 in the 17th over. Eventually South Africa won with two balls to spare. In the Kanpur ODI Shikhar Dhawan was given out lbw to Morne Morkel when it seemed the ball was headed down the leg side from round the wicket. India eventually lost that match by five runs.

The 36-year-old Kulkarni has stood in 18 ODIs and seven T20Is. The convention in bilateral ODIs is for a local umpire to team up with a neutral umpire. Aleem Dar is the ICC's neutral official for the ODI series, and it is the home board's prerogative to provide a local umpire provided he is part of their international panel of umpires. Kulkarni is scheduled to stand in the second ODI, which will be played in Indore on Wednesday. This will be his last match as on-field umpire in the series before he returns as third umpire for the last ODI. This, though, was decided in advance, and has nothing to do with the captain's report.