India opener KL Rahul was left fuming after being dismissed under controversial circumstances during the first Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test against Australia at the Perth Stadium on Friday.
Rahul was given not out by the on-field umpire while trying to defend off Mitchell Starc in the 23rd over, following which Australia went for the DRS, as they felt for a caught-behind dismissal.
Reviewing the decision, third umpire Richard Illingworth believed Rahul nicked the ball after the spike on UltraEdge, even if the bat may have seemed to hit the pad in tandem. Even though Illingworth asked for a front-on angle, he wasn't given one by the producers and had to decide based on the inconclusive angle from behind the stumps.
Rahul walked to the dressing room in disbelief after making 26 runs off 74 balls in the first session of play while seeing the out decision being displayed even though evidence did not conclusively point towards it. Such a decision-making in leading to Rahul's dismissal left commentators too in disbelief.
"My first reaction was, was there enough evidence there for the third umpire to overrule what was given. It was not out on the field of play. Did I see enough there for me to be convinced? I didn't see enough, to be honest," said former India head coach Ravi Shastri on Fox Sports.
Former Australia bowler Kerry O'Keeffe agreed with Shastri's views. "I think he was unlucky. I think he brushed the pad with his bat. There's no hot spot anymore, that would have shown it up. Rahul was disappointed, you tend to know. He threw his arms up in the air. The umpires' decision is final."
Former Australia opener Matthew Hayden has his say on Channel 7. "The bat and pad are separated at the time when the ball goes by. What happens actually, that thing (bat hits pad) happens after the ball crosses the edge. Does Snicko capture the sound when the bat hits the pad? We're presuming (Snicko) is an outside edge of the bat, but it may not be."
But former umpire Simon Taufel had a different view of Rahul's dismissal controversy. "The umpire is looking for conclusive evidence and there were a few gremlins … where he didn't get a few camera angles that he wanted. In my view the ball does graze the outside edge."
"We saw with that side on shot there was a spike on RTS with the bat away from the pad, in other words the bottom of the bat hadn't reached the pad. Therefore rolling that through in its natural course, you may have seen that second spike (on Snicko, to indicate bat hitting pad) come through, had it been rolled all the way through."
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