Former Australia opener Matthew Hayden made a couple of observations on the on-field umpires' actions during Arshdeep Singh's final over. India successfully defended a total of 160 and won the match by six runs to clinch the T20I series 4-1
The recently concluded India vs Australia T20I series gave the home team's supporters something to cheer about after the Men In Blue's heart-breaking defeat in the final of ICC Cricket World Cup 2023. A fresh-faced Indian men's team registered a comprehensive 4-1 series victory over the Aussies, but an incident involving former Australia opener Matthew Hayden in the fifth match left a bitter taste in many a fan's mouth. (As It Happened | Scorecard | Cricket News)
Batting first, a Suryakumar Yadav-led India struggled to a below-par total of 160 at Bengaluru’s M Chinnaswamy Stadium, but the bowlers stepped up and defended the total. Seamers Mukesh Kumar and Arshdeep Singh were the stars for India in the death overs. While Mukesh ended with figures of 3/32, Arshdeep scalped two wickets for 40 runs and conceded just three in the 20th over to propel the hosts to a six-run win.
But Hayden, who was doing commentary in that last over, made a couple of observations on the umpires' actions. The square-leg umpire did not signal the first ball for a wide even though Arshdeep’s bouncer was over Aussie skipper Matthew Wade’s head.
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Wade was visibly upset with the umpire's decision, and remonstrated with him over it. Reacting to that on air, Hayden said: “You can see why he is upset; that’s definitely a wide. Way over his head. It has to be about his position as well. He was standing up on that ball, and it was still over his head.”
Later, during the fifth delivery of the same over, the umpire accidentally got in the way of a shot straight down the ground by Nathan Ellis. The ball had actually ricocheted off Arshdeep's hand onto the umpire, who had almost no time to evade it. Nevertheless, Hayden said, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, “The umpire has done his job for the second time this over. Have a look at this. This time, it’s the one in front, not on square. They are tag-teaming here.”
As this was an unforced error by the umpire, the remark from Hayden irked several viewers. One user said that it was “pathetic from a commentator,” stating that at best, it would have been two runs and not a game-altering event.