The confusion over Steve Smith’s run-out reprieve spread into the England dressing room on day two of the Fifth Ashes Test, with Stuart Broad admitting: “I don’t know the rules!”
Australia were bowled out for 295 on the second evening at the Oval, the tourists securing a narrow first-innings lead of 12 after winning the toss and choosing to bowl on the opening morning.
However, it might well have been England in the ascendancy had TV umpire Nitin Menon not ruled in Smith’s favour when the batter came mightily close to being run out by substitute fielder George Ealham in an incident that evokes memories of Gary Pratt’s famous dismissal of Ricky Ponting during the 2005 series.
Diving full length, one replay appeared to show Smith short of his ground as wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow broke the stumps, while other angles suggested the bails remained in their groove as Smith’s bat crossed into his crease. There was also a question over whether Bairstow had already dislodged the bails prior to collecting the throw.
“I honestly don’t know the rules,” Broad said. “I think there is enough grey area to give that not out.
“What are the rules? Was it the right decision? It looked like benefit of the doubt [to the batter] sort of stuff. The first angle I saw I thought ‘out’. Then the side angle it looked like the bails probably dislodged.
“Kumar [Dharmasena, the on-field umpire] said to me that if it was zing bails it would have been given out but I don’t really understand the reasoning why.”
Smith’s departure at that stage would have left his side 195 for eight but the batter went on from 44 to top score with 71, edging Australia ahead along with handy lower-order contributions from Todd Murphy and Pat Cummins.
Smith, like Broad, was left slightly bemused by the incident, having walked halfway off the field after viewing the first replay on the big screen, before returning as the third umpire continued his deliberation.
“I saw the initial replay and the bail came up and then when I looked the second time, it looked like Jonny might have knocked bail before ball came in,” he explained. “It looked pretty close. If the ball had hit at the initial stage I thought I was well out of my ground, but on the next angle it looked pretty close and the umpire gave me not out.”
It was a strange day in the spotlight for the bails, with Broad at the centre of a bizarre sequence of events midway through the morning session.
England’s seamers had bowled without luck for the best part of 90 minutes as Marnus Labuschagne and Usman Khawaja dug in, until Broad made the strange move of swapping the bails over as the former prepared to take his guard.
From the very next delivery, Labuschagne was dismissed, edging Mark Wood to slip, where Joe Root took a sensational one-handed catch.
“I’ve heard – and I might have made this up - that it’s like an Aussie change of luck thing,” Broad explained. “I could have just made that up. But we had a few played and misses in the morning session, we needed to make a breakthrough and I thought I’d have a little change of the bails.
“Marnus is someone who would notice everything so he took notice of it. It just worked out pretty magically that he nicked off next ball and Rooty took a great catch.”
