Former players have given a clean chit to the third umpire decision of Joe Root. There were some doubts whether KL Rahul’s catch was clean or not.
It was the first ball of Hardik Pandya’s spell when the all-rounder got a short pitch to move in. The ball got the outside edge of Joe Root’s bat. KL Rahul who was standing at second slip took a good low catch.
It was a clean catch.
However, there were some doubts over the authenticity of the catch. In fact, Indian opener had got his fingers underneath the ball and the ball bounced in his fingers. The on-field umpire Marais Erasmus gave the soft signal as out. Thus, the third umpire, Aleem Dar needed a strong evidence to overrule the on-field decision.
Former England southpaw batsman Mark Butcher put his weight behind KL Rahul’s catch.
“(The) ball travels horizontally, not vertically towards an object that is curved, not flat. Therefore the ball can, and did in this case, bounce off the fingers into the palms. Out!” Butcher tweeted.
However, the crowd had booed KL Rahul for claiming the controversial catch. Thus, Rahul gave it back to the crowd when he took the catch of Ben Stokes on which there were no second thoughts. Rahul raised his hands to his ears as he took a dig at the English crowd.
Former England skipper Michael Vaughan and Sri Lankan legend Kumar Sangakkara also said the catch was pristine.
“A lot of controversy over the catch – I thought he was caught. I think it bounces off the finger,” Vaughan told the BBC.
On the commentary for Sky Sports, Test legend Kumar Sangakkara added: “It does look out … it looked as if the fingers were underneath the ball. You do need conclusive evidence to overturn any signal from the on-field umpires.”
England skipper Joe Root had shown his dissent over the dismissal and was not pleased with the decision. Meanwhile, India is a commanding position as they are currently leading by 292 runs and have eight wickets in hand.
