Shane Warne says Herschelle Gibbs' dropped catch in the 1999 World Cup was legit
Indian cricketer Umesh Yadav's controversial catch to dismiss Joe Root in the first Test against England was the talk of the town a few days ago as a lot of cricketers started debating if it was a legitimate one or not. Herschelle Gibbs, who was involved in such an instance back in the 1999 World Cup, was quick in his judgment and pointed out that it was a clean catch and asked the cricketing fraternities not to compare it with his "drop" in the 1999 World Cup.
However, former Australian spinner Shane Warne expressed his views regarding the controversial catch recently and claimed that Gibbs' drop was legit.
Also read: SK Play of the Day: Umesh Yadav almost makes a mess of Joe Root's return catch
Warne, who is with the Channel 9 commentary team, watched the highlights of the classic match of the 1999 Word Cup between Australia and South Africa with fellow commentator Mark Nicholas, after the second day's play between South Africa and Australia was washed out. It was at this moment when Mark asked him if he believed the Gibbs catch was a legit one.
Warne was quick to respond and gave a detailed explanation on why he thought the catch was a legit one. "To me, I think if you look at this in the slow motion, it looks like Gibbs held it – he caught it … he goes to throw it up, and he drops it."
The legendary spinner went on to state that one had to look at law 32 of MCC carefully before coming to a conclusion. He went on to say, "Now I think the letter of the law is, did he have control of that ball?
"And you'd have to say YES," he concluded.
However, Warne didn't want to continue on the topic further and ended with a cheeky statement. "But we don't want to ruin a good story," he was quoted as saying by Cricket Australia.
Interestingly, Warne's comments come in as a contrast to what the man himself - Gibbs, thought about his catch. Gibbs had earlier claimed that his infamous "drop catch" in 1999 World Cup was rightly called by the umpires. Gibbs, while explaining about Umesh's catch to dismiss Root said, "There's not much difference between Yadav's and my catch, but he held on to the ball slightly longer than I did."
Also read: Herschelle Gibbs speaks about controversial Umesh Yadav's catch
"He actually had control of the ball and threw it in the air whereas I wanted to throw it up but dropped it. Mine eventuated in a not out, but Yadav's catch was valid. The umpires got it right both times," he was quoted as saying by Mid-day.
While it has been more than 15 years since the controversial incident took place, Warne's comments might surely haunt Gibbs who was termed to have "dropped the World Cup" back then after dropping Steve Waugh's catch.