Virat Kohli is always known for being an expressive cricketer. Be it on or off the field, the former Indian skipper makes sure he is able to voice his thoughts no matter what the consequences are. On the final day of the fourth Test match, Kohli did something that just delighted the netizens on Twitter and once again raised fingers at the quality of umpiring in the series.
The incident occurred during the 34th over of the match, when Ravichandran Ashwin was bowling to Travis Head. Ashwin delivered an amazing ball that hit the southpaw’s pads, and the entire Indian team immediately went up in appeal, believing they had taken their second scalp of the day.
However, the on-field umpire, Nitin Menon, denied the appeal and signaled for play to continue. Ashwin, who looked pretty confident that the ball had hit the pads before the bat, urged the Indian captain, Rohit Sharma, to take a review. Sharma promptly complied and signaled for a review of the umpire’s decision.
The television umpire then reviewed the footage of the incident, using both UltraEdge and Ball Tracking technology. The UltraEdge technology showed that there was no bat involved in the incident, meaning that the ball had hit Head’s pads directly. However, the Ball Tracking technology showed that the ball was only hitting a part of the stumps, which meant that the decision was “Umpire’s Call.” As a result, the original decision made by the on-field umpire was upheld, and Head survived the appeal.
However, Virat Kohli did not seem happy with the decision and believed that it should have been given out by the on-field umpire in the first place itself. Kohli, who was standing close to the stumps, was heard saying to his teammates on the stump mic “Main hota to out tha”, meaning that had he been the batter instead of Head, Umpire Nitin Menon would have given him out in no time.
The incident humored the fans who instantly took to Twitter to share their thoughts on the social media platform. However, Nitin Menon is also receiving a lot of criticism for his umpiring throughout the series.