Rishabh Pant’s controversial dismissal against New Zealand turned out to be as big a talking point as India’s defeat – and the series whitewash, as a result – in the third Test at the Wankhede Stadium on Sunday.
India’s hopes of chasing a target of 147 hinged primarily on Pant’s shoulders. While he was playing a blinder, Ajaz Patel turned one into him, the ball appeared to have rapped into his pad, very close to the bat. Though Pant was ruled ‘not out’ by the on-field umpire, Tom Latham asked for a DRS referral.
Despite the bat being close to the pad, TV umpire Paul Reiffel overturned the decision, prompting an astonished Pant to take the long walk back. In the aftermath of the incident, India captain Rohit Sharma said he hoped that the umpires remained consistent in their approach.
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“If we say something, it is not accepted well. But if there is no conclusive evidence, it has to stand with the umpire’s on-field decision. That is what I have been told, so I don’t know how that decision was overturned since the umpire didn’t give him out. The bat was clearly close to the pad,” Rohit said.
“I don’t know if it is the right thing for me to talk about. It is something for the umpires to think about. Have the same rules for every team, and not keep changing their mind. That dismissal actually was very, very crucial from our point of view. Rishabh was really looking good at that point and it felt like he would take us through. But it was an unfortunate dismissal, got out and then we were bowled out right after that.”
New Zealand captain Tom Latham stated his troupe was confident it had heard two sounds.
“The footage that the third umpire gets, that’s certainly out of our control in terms of what that may look like but we obviously heard a couple of noises and decided to take the review and obviously, it fell on the right side for us, so that’s obviously up to the umpires. It’s out of our control,” Latham said.
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