Michael Holding has slammed the umpiring during West Indies’ loss to Australia as “atrocious”, while Carlos Brathwaite described some decisions as “frustrating” and “dodgy” and suggested that West Indies players are on the wrong end of decisions more often than their opponents. He denied, however, that the decisions had cost them the match in a hard-fought 15-run defeat to Australia at Trent Bridge.
The umpires, Chris Gaffaney and Ruchira Palliyaguruge, had four decisions overturned between them and Gaffaney also missed a blatant front foot no-ball from Mitchell Starc that preceded the delivery that claimed the wicket of Chris Gayle. If the no-ball had been called, Gayle would have had a free hit on what was ultimately the wicket-ball.
“I don’t know if I’ll be fined for saying it but I just think that the umpiring was a bit frustrating,” said Brathwaite. “Even when we were bowling we thought a few balls close to head height were called wides. And obviously three decisions in one over as far as I can remember being dodgy, it was frustrating and sent ripples through the dressing room.
“To lose Chris in a chase of 280, who can probably get 180 of them himself obviously, broke the start that we wanted to have. But the umpires do their job, they try to do it to the best of their ability, we as players go out there to do our job as well, so there was no confrontation between the players and the umpires.”
Holding, commentating on the ICC’s world television feed, was even more scathing, extending his criticism to the umpires’ handling of the Australian bowlers’ appeals for wickets.
“The umpiring in this game has been atrocious,” Holding said. “For one, even when I was playing and you were not as strict as they are now, you were allowed one appeal. You don’t appeal two, three, four times to the umpire.”
“They are being intimidated which means they are weak.”
“This has been an atrocious bit of umpiring by both [Gaffaney and Palliyaguruge].”In all, Gayle reviewed three decisions - two in one over and all off the bowling of Starc - and had the first two overturned. On the first occasion, Gaffaney gave him out caught behind only for the replay to show the audible sound of ball on wood had come from the ball shaving the stumps but somehow not dislodging the bails. Gayle reviewed twice more, both for lbw decisions by Gaffaney, before being given out. But it wasn’t until the ball preceding the wicket was replayed on television that the West Indies players realised that Starc had overstepped by a considerable margin. (Cricinfo)