Late on the fourth evening, Will Young was adjudged lbw by umpire Virender Sharma off the bowling of Ravichandran Ashwin in controversial circumstances.
The Black Caps opener, after a long deliberation, wanted to review the decision. However, the India team and the umpire indicated that he had run out of time to opt for the DRS. Had Young been allowed to review the decision, he would have survived, with HawkEye projecting the ball, which kept low and spun sharply, to pass down the leg-side.
What is unclear is whether the bowling end umpire should have prompted Young when five seconds were remaining before his time ran out.
The relevant DRS provision 3.2.2 in the World Test Championship playing conditions states, “If the on-field umpires believe that a request has not been made within the 15 second time limit, they shall decline the request for a Player Review”. The same section also mandates that the umpire needs to inform the player after 10 seconds, provided a review hasn’t been taken up until that point.
“The bowler’s end umpire shall provide the relevant player with a prompt after 10 seconds if the request has not been made at that time and the player shall request the review immediately thereafter.”
Early on day five, Simon Doull brought to notice that he had spoken to the fourth umpire. The match official said that the umpires need not issue a prompt if the DRS timer is visible on the big screen. “I spoke to the fourth umpire this morning. When the DRS timer is on the big screen, the umpire doesn’t have to alert the batsman after 10 seconds that only five more left,” Doull said on broadcast.
However, the playing conditions don’t accommodate for any such practice. Hence, confusion has reigned over the approach that was followed. There is no mention of a DRS timer on the big screen. Thus, the umpires, according to the playing conditions, seemingly should have ideally told Young that 10 seconds had passed since the ball had gone dead.
At this point, though, it remains unclear whether umpire Sharma did so. The umpires have been under the scanner in first Test at Kanpur, with several of their decisions being overturned. And if Young didn’t receive a word from Sharma after 10 seconds had elapsed, it seems that the umpires might have missed another trick.
