Pakistan skipper Shan Masood believes the ball-tracking depicted by the Hawkeye didn’t paint the correct picture which led to his dismissal in the second innings of the final Test of the series against South Africa, reported ESPNCricinfo. Masood, batting at 145, was trapped in front of the stumps by debutant Kwena Maphaka. The on-field umpire, Nitin Menon, initially turned down the appeals which led to South Africa taking the decision upstairs by exercising the option of DRS. During the review, the trajectory depicted that the ball would have gone to crash into the stumps, leading to the overturning of the on-field decision.
After Pakistan’s series whitewash, Masood felt that the ball-tracking failure was at fault which led to his dismissal, and said as quoted from ESPNcricinfo, “It’s simple. It was an outswinger. If you see the ball that I was beaten by, it jagged away a long way. I was beaten on the outside edge, and it was shown as an inswinger. I was baffled by that to be very honest.”
Masood, who batted for nearly six hours across two days of play, was hardly troubled throughout his stay at the crease. The delivery that undid all of his hard work, landed at length and kept a bit low while beating the outside edge. Masood’s attempt to defend it went in vain as the ball struck his back pad.
“With the naked eye, you could see it felt like it was outside the line as well. I just felt it was a different picture. I didn’t get hit where Hawkeye was showing it to be hit. I was hit more on the outside of the leg than the inside; it shows it on the inside. That’s not an inswinger. I was beaten by an outswinger and that’s what the umpire thought as well, and that’s all I can say to that,” he added.
When the on-field decision was overturned, Masood didn’t hide away his emotions. He visibly held a look of anger and frustration on his face. When he crossed the boundary line he made a gesture by throwing his hand in an outward arc suggesting the movement of the ball.
“It’s up to the administrators to see if that’s a fair decision or not, but I certainly felt that technology didn’t show the trajectory of how that ball was,” Masood said.
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