Indian superstar Virat Kohli was saved from a golden duck thanks to an incredibly close decision by the third umpire in the first hour of the SCG Test.
Kohli walked into the box after just 40 minutes of play and appeared to have snatched the first ball from Scott Boland when Steve Smith took the ball low at second slip and lofted it to Marnus Labuschagne to complete what seemed like a miracle. catch.
As the Australians ran into wild celebrations and Boland no doubt began to dream of his plans for a hat-trick, referee Sharfuddoula consulted his fellow on-field official Michael Gough, and they decided to send him to the third umpire.
As always, the footage reviewed by Joel Wilson was far from conclusive, with different angles supporting both sides of the argument and players from both teams on the field celebrating and mourning accordingly as the proceedings progressed.
The ball entered Smith’s right hand cleanly as he pitched low, but as he began tossing the ball up, there appeared, from some angles, to be a hint of grass touching the ball for a frame or two as his thumb spun the ball. . in his hand.
Some shots, from certain angles, suggested that perhaps the ball grazed the grass. (Supplied: Channel Seven)
After long deliberation, Wilson made his decision.
“He has his fingers (under it) but as if he had rolled on the ground. I have that ball barely touching the ground,” he said, as Kohli happily accepted the second life and began all sorts of deliberations.
Smith, predictably, was stiff and said: “That’s out, it’s on my finger” as captain Pat Cummins approached the referees for an explanation.
Former Australia fast bowler Glenn McGrath said on ABC Sport that it was a 50/50 decision, but he looked after it.
“As cricketers, we all think that’s out of the question, that the ball never touched the ground,” he said.
“If I’m hitting, I’m probably happy to walk there, but I’m also happy (for him) to stay.”
Unlike DRS calls, in catch reviews of this nature, there is no “soft” signal on the field from the referees.
That means the third umpire has to make a final decision even if the footage is inconclusive, which five-time ICC referee of the year Simon Taufel said presented a “problem”.
“I can certainly understand what the third referee did there. “He thinks he saw the ball on the ground and called it the way he saw it,” he said on Channel Seven.
“Normally, the ICC protocol on fair catches is that if you see the fingers under the ball, that is good to maintain a fair catch.”
No one could argue that Smith lost control of the ball, but the question is whether the ball touched the ground, which has been a source of controversy many times in recent years.
“I think that is ruled out. I think his finger was underneath,” Mark Waugh said on Fox, with former Australia captain Allan Border saying his opinion would probably differ depending on which team he supported.
Former Australia opener and coach Justin Langer was stiff.
“He had his fingers under the ball. It seemed to me like he was instinctively looking to throw the ball up,” he said on Seven.
“In my opinion, the finger was still under the ball. “That should have been a great catch for Australia.”
In an interesting twist, the Sharfuddoula-Wilson umpiring combination was at the center of the most controversial decision in the MCG Test, when the roles were reversed and Sharfuddoula overturned Wilson’s on-field decision to dismiss Yashasvi Jaiswal despite there was no rise in snicko as India collapsed. in the last session.
