India opener Yashasvi Jaiswal was dismissed in unusual circumstances during the final session on day five of the Boxing Day Test at the MCG after an on-field not-out decision for caught-behind was overturned by the third umpire despite Real-time Snicko not confirming the edge.
Jaiswal, batting on 84, attempted to hook a bouncer from Pat Cummins, the ball was caught by wicketkeeper Alex Carey, the Australians appealed, on-field umpire Joel Wilson said not-out, and Australia reviewed the decision.
While Snicko showed a flat line as the ball passed the bat, regular replays showed a big deflection. Third umpire Sharfuddoula went by what he saw - the deflection - and overturned the decision in Australia's favour. Jaiswal was seen chatting with the umpires before walking off. His dismissal meant India's last hope of saving the Test was gone. They were left tottering at 140 for 7 in a chase of 340 and eventually went down by 184 runs.
"I don't know what to make of that because the technology didn't show anything, but with the naked eye it seemed like he did touch something," Rohit Sharma told the press after the game. "I don't know how the umpires want to use the technology, but in all fairness, I think he did touch the ball…
"It's about the technology, which we know is not 100% - more often than not we are the ones falling on the wrong side of it… that's where we are unfortunate."
Cummins, meanwhile, was clear that Jaiswal had hit the ball and knew he had hit the ball.
"Think it was clear that he hit it, heard a noise, saw a deviation, so was absolutely certain that he hit it," he said. "As soon as we referred, you saw him drop his head and basically acknowledge that he hit. On screen, you can see he hit it. Ultra Edge, don't think anyone has complete confidence and didn't really show much, but fortunately there was enough other evidence to show it was clearly out."
Like Rohit, who saw the deflection too, Simon Taufel was in agreement with the third umpire, saying the deflection was "conclusive evidence" and said Sharfuddoula was well within his rights to do what he felt was correct.
"In my view, the decision was out," Taufel said on Channel 7. "The third umpire did make the correct decision in the end. With the technology protocols, we do have a hierarchy of redundancy and when the umpire sees a clear deflection off the bat there is no need to go any further and use any other form of technology to prove the case. The clear deflection is conclusive evidence.
"In this particular case, what we have seen from the third umpire is they have used a secondary form of technology, which for whatever reason hasn't shown the same conclusive evidence of audio to back up the clear deflection. In the end, the third umpire did the right thing and went back to the clear deflection and overturned the umpire field. So, in my view correct decision made."
Sunil Gavaskar, speaking on Star Sports, however, wasn't happy with the evidence, or lack of it, on Snicko being ignored.
"We have seen so many times that the ball swings late after going very close to the edge of the bat. We have seen it so many times, haven't we, that the ball does not take the edge, but goes very close and swings later after hitting the seam," he said. "From afar it seems that the ball has taken the edge. I am talking about a forward defence, not talking about this hook shot.
Was the third umpire within his brief or did he overstep it in making the decision?
"The optical illusion suggests there is an edge. It was this optical illusion here as well. If the technology evidence suggests it is not out, then you cannot give it out."
On the live broadcast on Star Sports, Mark Nicholas and Sanjay Manjrekar called it a "brave" call by the third umpire.
"On Jaiswal's dismissal, I think it's very brave of the third umpire to over-ride Snicko," Nicholas said. "I think that's pretty rare too."
Manjrekar said, "These are not the best angles, there was one angle given which was front-on, and that's where you see the deflection when you see it visually, then you see the Snicko that reconfirms everything. Any other umpire would have gone, well, if the Snicko was not showing it - and I love Snicko as a technology - I'm not going to give that out. That also would be accepted by us."
"I don't know if any other umpire, I mean my guess is that it runs off both bat and glove, that's a total guess," Nicholas added. "I think that's the problem watching that replay. Or any other replays."