This was his third level 1 offence for the season. Consequently, he was fined 50% of his match fee and handed two demerit points. It took his demerit-points tally for the last 36 months to five, resulting in a one-match ban.
The incident occurred in the tenth over of GT’s innings when Jordan Cox’s catch off Washington Sundar was ruled not out. David was found to have breached Article 2.9 of the IPL’s code of conduct, which relates to “throwing a ball (or any other item of cricket equipment such as a water bottle) at or near a player, team official, umpire, match referee or any other third person in an inappropriate and/or dangerous manner during a match”. He admitted to the offence and accepted the sanction imposed by the match referee, Javagal Srinath.
David had committed his first offence of the season in match 20 against Mumbai Indians (one demerit point) and his second in the reverse fixture against the same opponents in match 54 (two demerit points).
RCB went on to beat GT by five wickets in the final and picked up their second title, successfully defending their 2025 crown. David played an important role in that, scoring 305 runs at an average of 33.88 and a strike rate of 188.27.
