ENG vs AUS: During the fourth Test match between England and Australia, Joe Root’s catch of Steve Smith has been argued over.
Ashes 2023: The debate that started when Cameron Green caught Shubman Gill’s shot has reached the Ashes. The final of the World Test Championship will be played between India and Australia. In the match between England and Australia in Manchester, Joe Root made a similar catch, and the ball later hit the ground. But this time, the third judge sided with the batter and said that the catch was not made. Fans and experts don’t seem to agree on this.
Steve Smith got the boot
In fact, the England team was looking for wickets in the last part of the third day’s play. He got two wins after getting a lead of 271 runs. When Steve Smith came up to bat in this situation, Chris Woakes threw an outside ball that Smith got an edge on.
The ball went right to Joe Root at slip, but it was going down. When this happened, Root caught him from very low down, with his hands on the ground. Root didn’t say that he caught the ball when he got it. But the umpires chose to send the catch back to see if it was out of his hands.
TV referee gave notout agreement
Replays showed that the ball was much closer than Root thought it was. But it wasn’t clear if Root had actually gotten his fingers under it or not. Kumar Dharmasena, the TV umpire, saw that the ball had hit the ground and decided that the player was not out.
Ricky Ponting said it was hard to choose
Ricky Ponting, a former cricket player, thinks that the ball was very close and that it would be hard to decide what to do in that case. He said, “Most of the time, I think you can tell by how the fielder reacts.” “There are times when you know for sure you would have caught it. If he was sure then, Joe, I think he would have thrown it straight up.”
He also said, “You have to decide if the ball really bounced off the ground and into the palm of his hand or if it bounced off the tips of his fingers and into the palm of his hand. It’s very hard because the lines were so close together.
Fans raised questions
Some fans were not happy with how the umpire made this choice. On Twitter, he said that this was wrong. Even the catch of Shubman Gill was linked to it. At the same time, someone made fun of Smith by saying, “Smith should have been out in the real sense, and Root should have been praised.”
