Pat Cummins, the captain of the Australian team, expressed on Monday that it is difficult to repose full confidence on ultra-edge technology but affirmed that the India batter Yashasvi Jaiswal edged him clearly behind the stumps to Alex Carey. Cummins delivered and Jaiswal fell to 84 when he tried pulling a short-pitched delivery from Cummins, with Carey collecting the remains. Since the appeal was not upheld by on-field umpire Joel Wilson, it went to the final arbiter. Ibne Saikat, a third umpire from Bangladesh, however, overruled the on-field decision despite the Snicko not showing any spike.
It was based on the clear visual evidence of the ball hitting the bat logo to give him out that Jaiswal sparked off heated debates all over.
Saikat’s verdict came as Jaiswal’s even ticked off 310 minutes, and otherwise, this left-handed batsman would have kept himself out of the ground to extend the Indian efforts of saving the fourth Test, which Australia won by 184 runs.
But Cummins had a clear thought about it.
“Oh look, I think it was just clear that he hit it. We heard a noise, saw a deviation, so it was absolutely certain that he hit it. As soon as we referred it, you could see him drop his head and basically acknowledge that he hit it. On the screen you can see he hit it,” Cummins said at the post-match press conference.
But then, he again said that he wasn’t quite impressed with the quality of technology being used for ultra edge in detecting the spikes. “Ultra-edge… I don’t think any one really has full faith in it and didn’t actually show a lot, but there was enough other evidence to show it was clearly out,” he further added.
The 31-year-old opined that Australia’s bowling in the first session was very near to perfection in which they got rid of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and KL Rahul to get India down to 33 for 3.
“To be honest, I reckon that the first session was close to perfection from a bowling point of view. I thought we were excellent
“All the boys didn’t really give much bad balls away. I didn’t know what their plan is going to be but honestly I don’t think we really gave them the chance to to fight back at us too much,” the skipper said.
Cummins rated the win comparable to their win against England at close tussle at Edgebaston during the 2023 Ashes.
“I reckon this one is right on top. Yeah, Edgbaston (2023) was pretty special, and I reckon this is pretty much on par,” he said.
Having earlier fought hard for five days to earn the win in the Boxing Day Test, Cummins wants his boys to have their fill of New Year before going back into serious work for the last match of the series at Sydney.
“Yeah, you know it’s a short turnaround, so yeah I think we’ll definitely save you this one. You work so hard over five days to win a Test match like this and I’m sure there’ll be a lot of sitting around tonight and a couple of boys might have a beer,” he said.
“Some others might not have, you know, water and some protein shakes and an early night but we’ll save this for a couple hours at least and then it’ll be recovery for the next few days.
“Spare me! I’m sure the batters will have all the time to practice; I dare say the blue bowlers will be very light on and then you gear up again for the last test of the summer. So, it’s quite a mixture of happiness and rest, I reckon, for the next three days,” he commented.
