Ben Stokes survived a close lbw shout on the fourth morning of the first Ashes Test today (June 19). However, former Australia captain Mark Taylor was “confused” with the TV umpire’s judgement as he felt that Stokes had not hit the ball despite Ultra-Edge showing there to have been noise as ball passed bat.
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England got off to a quick start on day four of the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston after Joe Root produced a string of reverse scoops early in the day to surprise everyone watching.
In the 13.3 overs before the first drinks break, England scored 93 runs for the loss of one wicket. Root perished soon after the break as he tried one shot too many against Nathan Lyon, who was settling into a nice rhythm from the Birmingham End.
Ben Stokes came out at No.6 and got off to an uncharacteristically slow start. Having fallen to an expansive cover drive early in his innings on day one, he was determined to get a hang of the conditions this time around and make it big.
Lyon, however, had found a nice line and length from round the wicket, both to right-handers and left-handers. In his fifth over of the morning, he got one to stay low to Stokes, shooting by the under-edge of his bat and hitting him on the pad as he came forward to defend.
The on-field umpire signalled not out as the Aussies appealed, forcing them to go upstairs for a review. Replays showed that there were multiple spikes as the ball passed the bat, which was enough for the TV umpire to conclude that Stokes had hit it. The on-field umpire’s decision was upheld.
Mark Taylor, the former Australia captain, who was on air doing commentary for Sky Sports Cricket, felt that there might have been daylight between bat and ball and that spikes might have come from some other source of noise.
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Taylor said, “Well, that one has confused me, to be totally honest. It’s been given not out on the ground. Now it’s obviously stayed not out. If we can get that bit of footage, there’s a noise, but it’s not a sharp noise. It’s not a flick on the bat.
“It will be interesting to see. Because I think Ben Stokes actually might have said he didn’t hit it and he’s been given not out because that Snicko suggests there was a noise, but I think there was a gap between the ball and the bat. You can see there’s a gap between the bat and ball here. There’s a bit of noise here but you can see daylight between the ball and the bat. There’s a noise but it could be a shuffling of the feet. I don’t believe he’s hit that. I’m interested to see if it goes on to hit the stumps.”
Kumar Sangakkara was sitting alongside Taylor in the commentary box and echoed similar sentiments, saying that he too was confused by the replays and the decision: “Yeah, not the usual spike. The sound that you see with an edge, an isolated spike. This had kind of a few murmurings along that line. No sharp spike. It was quite confusing to me as well.”
Since the TV umpire felt that Stokes had hit the ball, the ball tracking wasn’t shown at the time of the review. However, replays shown later suggested that the impact was outside the off stump and that the ball would have missed the stumps. So even if the TV umpire had decided that Stokes had not hit the ball, it wouldn’t have overturned the on-field decision.
