The situation unfolded in the last over of the game delivered by India‘s Arshdeep Singh, with Australia’s captain Matthew Wade at the crease. Australia faced a challenging six-run defeat against India in the fifth T20I at M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Sunday.
Despite putting up a strong performance, they couldn’t secure a win, and an umpiring mistake in the final over became a significant factor. The incident occurred when Arshdeep Singh bowled to Australian captain Matthew Wade, starting with a bouncer that went above Wade’s head.
In this situation, the equation should have theoretically become 9 off 6 balls, but the umpire ruled it a legal delivery, leading to Wade’s frustration. Expressing his displeasure at the square leg umpire for not calling it a wide, Wade gestured angrily. Two balls later, he was caught at long-on by Shreyas Iyer for 22 runs off 15 balls.
Matthew Wade expressed intense frustration following a significant umpiring error
The tension continued as the umpire drew attention, this time at the bowling end. Needing nine runs from the last two deliveries, Nathan Ellis hit a shot straight back at the bowler with the ball coming from the middle of his bat.
The ball deflected off Arshdeep’s hands and hit the umpire, who was attempting to avoid the line of the ball. Due to the impact, Australia managed only a single, making it an insurmountable 8 runs required off the final ball.
“It’s hard to wrap my head around at the moment after not being able to get us home,” Wade said of the loss. “I thought we bowled relatively well.”
”We kept them to a total that probably should have been chased at this ground. It’s pretty disappointing. It would have been nice to get the result tonight. I think 3-2 would have been a reflection of where the series was at.”
Opting to bat after winning the toss, Australia managed to restrict India to 160/8 in 20 overs. In response, Australia had a decent start but lost wickets at regular intervals, making the 161-run chase challenging.
Despite Matthew Wade’s efforts to keep them in the contest, Australia could only reach 154/8 in 20 overs. Wade’s good form was a positive for Australia, justifying his slightly higher batting order position. The T20I captain expressed satisfaction with the valuable contributions from various players.
“There’s always a temptation [to move up the order]; it was spoken about but looking forward to the World Cup. My job is to get us home in situations like tonight.”
”It would’ve been nice to get the result, but we learn and I thought Ben McDermott bounced back, Behrendorff, Dwarshuis, Sangha made an impact in tough conditions,” added Wade.
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