There was a moment of umpire controversy in Perth Scorchers’ BBL 10 defeat to Sydney Thunder, with Usman Khawaja reprieved despite getting a seemingly clear nick behind off Andrew Tye.
The incident occurred on the first ball of the sixth over of Sydney Thunder’s chase of 153. Khawaja aimed a booming drive at Tye, only for a clearly audible sound as ball passed bat and a catch by the keeper to result. Perth Scorchers began celebrating, and the commentators assumed Khawaja’s innings was over, only for umpire Simon Lightbody to turn down the appeal, to the disbelief of the on-air pundits.
“I thought the bat hit the ground,” was Lightbody’s explanation, though replays corroborated Tye’s response that “the bat was that far off the ground” as he gestured to the umpire. Tye was left with his head in his hands as he walked back to his mark.
[caption id=”attachment_188857″ align=”alignnone” width=”800″]
With the ball having just passed the batsman, the bat is seemingly not close to the ground[/caption]
Khawaja added only three more runs before being dismissed, but Sydney Thunder still prevailed by seven wickets in the final over.
Some pointed out that, in a way, this was luck evening itself out, with Khawaja having been given out caught behind in his opening knock of BBL 10, despite feeling that he hadn’t hit the ball. Still, in a season which has already seen it’s fair share of questionable umpiring calls, this will only add more weight to the calls made to bring a version of the Decision Review System into the Australian T20 competition.
A video of the moment is available to watch on Cricket.com.au
