Indian batter KL Rahul, who was comfortably negotiating Australian bowlers in the ongoing first Test match at Perth on Friday, was controversially given out. Rahul's dismissal touched off dividing opinions from former cricketers. Australia sent the decision upstairs after Rahul was not given out by the on-field umpire Richard Kettleborough for a caught-behind off Mitchell Starc.
Snicko showed a spike when ball passed the bat but KL Rahul insisted that bat touched the pad. It remained unclear but distraught KL Rahul was given out. Reacting to the decision, former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar believed that there should have been more evidence.
"So ideally, if there was bat, as an edge to the ball, there should have been an earlier spike because clearly two events there, and the umpire obviously heard one noise. The visual certainty was bat hitting the pad. If that was the spike, then there wasn't an outside edge. If we were shown two spikes, then you could say the first one was the bat. So it was a poor supply of technology to TV umpire, and he should have said he can't nail it," Manjrekar said on Star Sports.
India, meanwhile, struggled after stand-in skipper Jasprit Bumrah’s decision to bat after winning the toss proved to be unfruitful. India’s top-order batters in the form of Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal and Dhruv Jurel failed to add runs. However, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant and Nitish Kumar Reddy showed incredible resistance, guiding India to an average total.