Sydney: India captain Virat Kohli criticised the staff managing the big-screen at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) for a ‘goof-up’ which prevented the Indian team from taking a review against Australia’s Matthew Wade during the third T20I on Tuesday. Wade was on 50 off 34 balls at the time and went on to make 30 more runs.
Although the prevailing belief at the time was that India had exceeded the time alloted for taking a referral, Kohli blamed the TV staff for showing the replay of the disputed incident before the 15-second period — which is allowed to review a decision — was over.
“That lbw was a strange one because we were still discussing whether the ball was going down the leg-side or not and within the 15-second time-frame they showed the replay on the screen. We decided to go for the review but the umpire said that they have already shown the replay on the screen,” said Kohli while talking to reporters during a post-match media interaction.
Kohli, who was fielding in the deep at that time, walked up to talk to umpire Rod Tucker before being told that he won’t be able to review.
“I had a chat with (umpire) Rod (Tucker) on what can be done. He said nothing can be done. It was a mistake from TV. But we felt as team management that these mistakes can’t be done at the highest level and especially in an important game. This could be very costly. It was a little bit of a miss from the TV guys upstairs and I am sure we won’t be in a (similar) situation again.”
India had a poor day with the Decision Review System (DRS) with the team wasting both their reviews. While they failed to immediately appeal against Wade in the 11th over that lead to the controversy, they also got both their reviews against Glenn Maxwell wrong.
The first mistake came off the last ball of the 15th over of the Australian innings. The hard-hitting batsman went for a reverse-sweep against leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal but missed it and the ball settled in the hands of wicketkeeper KL Rahul. But replays showed that the ball had not touched the bat before Rahul caught it.
India’s next mistake came on the first ball of the 17th over with Maxwell trying a reverse hit against pace bowler Shardul Thakur and the ball going to the wicketkeeper. Kohli seemed uncertain but decided to take a DRS at the last moment. Once again, replays showed the ball had missed the bat before going into the Rahul’s gloves.
Earlier in the ODI series as well, India had wasted a couple of reviews against Steve Smith in the first match and against Aaron Finch in the third match. In the T20I series, they got a review right in the first T20I but got one wrong against Steve Smith in the second match.
