Former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan has called out Steve Bucknor for admitting just 2 mistakes from the 2008 India tour of Australia. This came in the aftermath of Bucknor admitting 12 years later that he made a few mistakes in the infamous 2008 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The trophy gained popularity for the biased umpiring against India and the monkey gate scandal, which happened between Andrew Symonds & Harbhajan Singh.
Irfan Pathan recently appeared on the Star Sports’ show Cricket Connected, where he talked about the mistakes made by the umpires in that test. The errors were so game-changing that India ended up losing the test series 2-1. Mark Benson and Steve Bucknor made some jaw-dropping decisions which angered the Indian fraternity in that particular series.
Irfan Pathan blasts Steve Bucknor
Angered by Bucknor’s admission of just two mistakes, Pathan lashed out at the former umpire saying that it doesn’t matter 12 years down the line you admit your mistakes.
“No matter how much you accept your mistakes, what’s done is done, we lost the Test match. And losing a Test match, just because of umpiring errors? Not going to make any difference, no matter what umpires say now,” Irfan told.
Moreover, Irfan recalled how Steve Bucknor made close to eight umpiring errors in the Sydney Test. He mentioned how Andrew Symonds wasn’t given out controversially for about three times when he was clearly out.
“This Sydney Test match, it was not just one mistake. There were about seven mistakes that cost us the game. There were mistakes where Andrew Symonds was playing, and he got out nearly, I remember, three times, and the umpire didn’t give him out,” he stated.
He further said how he noticed the Indian cricketers being angry, other than the fans. One news was going all around India and that was how the umpires acted unfairly against India.
“It was not just frustration. For the first time, I saw Indian cricketers were angry. Fans had only one thing in mind – that they [umpires] were doing it purposely. Obviously, as a cricketer, we can’t think like that,” he added.
