5 worst decisions in modern day cricket
Who can forget Sydney 2008?Playing a cricket match is one thing. Playing a cricket match better than your opponent is another thing. Winning a cricket match is an altogether different thing from the first two. Sometimes you perform much better than the other team, but still at the end of the day, you do not have the match in your hand. Why does it go like this?The answer is simple.
Generally cricket has three departments- batting, bowling and fielding. But there is another department like the fourth pillar of the modern-day state, the media, which may overshadow the finesse of all the other three departments and that too by just a single movement of a finger or sometimes by the absence of it. That fourth pillar here is Umpiring.
It played its role in the controversial Sydney Test between India and Australia in 2008, when despite putting up a marvellous performance, India lost the match. It also took part in deciding the India-Australia match in Sharjah back in 1998, when Sachin Tendulkar walked off the field when he edged an above shoulder ball to the keeper and the umpire did not call it a no-ball.
#5 Kumar Sangakkara vs Australia in 2007
Australia vs Sri Lanka, Hobart, Nov 16-20, 2007 Sri Lanka, 4th Innings, 364-8, 99.4 Overs,
Stuart Clarke to Kumar Sangakkara, Umpire Rudy Koertzen
Australia met Sri Lanka in Hobart for the 2nd match of the 2 match series with a 1-0 lead. The home side gave Sri Lanka a mammoth 507 run target to equal the series. Sri Lanka had made 265-3 before they suffered a middle-lower order collapse which reduced them to 290-8. The only piece of resistance was from Kumar Sangakkara who was seemingly impregnable even against the Johnson-Lee-Clark pace attack.
He had scored 192 when he went for a pull shot against Stuart Clark. He was a little early on the shot and missed the ball completely. The ball hit his upper arm and went towards slip corner where it was taken by Ricky Ponting.
The Australian fielders went for the appeal while Sangakkara showed no indication of anxiety. However, he had to show the signs of disappointment when the slow-motion finger of Rudi Koertzen directed him towards the pavilion. Replays clearly showed there was a huge gap between ball and the bat, and Rudi got it absolutely wrong.
Sri Lanka eventually lost the match by 96 runs, which might have gone in either team’s pocket had Sangakkara not been given out. However, one thing is almost certain, he was denied a richly derserved double ton.