Australian skipper Pat Cummins on Monday said it’s tough to repose full “confidence” on ultra-edge technology but maintained that India batter Yashasvi Jaiswal had clearly edged him behind the stumps to Alex Carey. Jaiswal was batting on 84 when he tried to pull a short-pitched delivery from Cummins, only to be collected by Carey. As on-field umpire Joel Wilson did not uphold the appeal, it was referred to the third umpire. Ibne Saikat, third umpire from Bangladesh, however, overruled the on-field decision despite the Snicko not showing any spike.
He relied on the clear visual evidence of the ball hitting the bat logo to give Jaiswal out, paving way for heated debates across the spectrum.
Saikat’s decision ended Jaiswal’s 310-minute vigil, and otherwise, the left-hander would have remained in the middle to prolong India’s fight to save the fourth Test, which the Aussies won by 184 runs.
But Cummins was clear in his thoughts.
“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.
However, Cummins, expressed his displeasure at the quality of technology being used for ultra edge in detecting the spikes.
“Ultra-edge… I don’t think anyone has complete confidence in it and didn’t really show much but fortunately there’s enough other evidence to show it was clearly out,” he added.
The 31-year-old, on the match-front, reckoned that Australia’s bowling was near perfect in the first session, where they got rid of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul to reduce India 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 guys didn’t really give any bad balls away. I didn’t know what their plan was 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 this victory on par with their close win against England at Edgbaston during the 2023 Ashes.
“I reckon this (victory) is right at the top. Yeah, Edgbaston (2023) was pretty special and I reckon this is pretty much on par,” he added.
After a hard-fought five-day win in the Boxing Day Test, Cummins wanted his boys to enjoy the New Year before getting down to business for the final 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.
“I’m sure the batters will have a hit, the bowlers I dare say will be very light on and then you gear up again for the last Test of the summer. So, mix of happiness and rest I reckon the next three days,” he noted.
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