Funny Incident at Ind Aus 4th test Match

A really funny incident happened on the 4th day of the third test match between India and Australia and it had nothing to do with the players, but, the umpire.


What happened was that Josh Hazlewood bowled a bouncer to Cheteshwar Pujara who went for a pull shot, but, ended up missing the ball. However, because the ball was so close to the bat while that false shot was being executed, the umpire thought it might have just kissed the bat on its way through and he started lifting his finger.

But that wasn’t the case and even the Australian team knew there was nothing in it. The umpire, as he was half way through the movement of his finger, noticed that there was no appeal being made from anywhere at all.

The wicketkeeper just calmly collected the ball and threw it towards one of the fielders and the bowler didn’t show too much interest either. The umpire probably then realized that he might have got it wrong there.

So very quickly he changed the direction in which his fingers were going and took it over his hat to give the impression that he had felt an urge to scratch his head a little bit and that’s where he was taking his hand to and was not giving the batsman out. But, television replays catch everything these days and they showed that his fingers were going upwards.

Everybody on the ground including the other umpires on duty saw it on TV immediately and laughed about it seeing the lighter side of it and that’s how it should be seen as well. Everyone makes silly mistakes at times in their lives and the umpires are no supermen. That can happen with them too.

The umpire who was in the thick of things though, Chris Gaffney, he was obviously a little embarrassed at the end.