Nitish Rana, the Delhi Capitals (DC) batter, has had to cough up a fine and had a demerit point added to his disciplinary record for “use of an audible obscenity” during the IPL 2026 game against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in Chennai on Saturday night. Ruturaj Gaikwad, the CSK captain, was also fined at the end of the match, but that was for his team’s slow over-rate.

Rana, who was left out of DC’s playing group after recording scores of 15, 0 and 5 in their first three matches, was in the team’s dugout when Tristan Stubbs, out in the middle, asked for a change of gloves.

The over had started with DC requiring 32 runs from two overs, and Stubbs was their only hope, unbeaten on 60 from 36 balls. The request, however, was turned down, leading to Rana having words with the fourth umpire, Anish Sahasrabudhe. Stubbs fell off the third ball of that over, bowled by Jamie Overton, without adding a run to his tally, and DC went on to lose by 23 runs.

Rana was fined 25% of his match fee after admitting to the offence.

Gaikwad, meanwhile, was fined INR 12 lakh for what was CSK’s first over-rate offence this season.

Gaikwad became the third captain to be fined for a similar offence in IPL 2026 after Shubman Gill of Gujarat Titans (GT) and Shreyas Iyer of Punjab Kings (PBKS). Iyer has, in fact, been fined twice already this season, for his team’s slow over-rates against both GT and CSK.