Did you see it? It was perhaps the worst lbw decision we’ve seen this millennium. The bowler was Raina, the batsman was KP, the ball pitched about a foot and a half outside leg-stump, the decision was out. No matter what you think of the DRS, there is surely one indisputable truth: no matter how many grey areas are thrown up by hotspot and the hawkeye’s predictive element, god awful umpiring decisions bring the game into disrepute to a far greater extent.
None of this helps KP however. Instead he missed out on the chance to score the winning runs, and was subsequently fined 50% of his match fee for dissent. It was hardly dissent though. It was just sheer amazement at the umpire’s incompetence. Don’t worry Kevin, you might have lost a few bob, but the fat IPL contract your magical innings will earn is bound to put you back into the black (by a couple of million quid I reckon).
Kevin Pietersen was one of only two England players to emerge from the disappointing tour of India with any credit. Steven Finn is the other. His sparkling half-century won Saturday’s T20 international, preserved England’s status as the number one ranked team in the shortest format of the game, and ensured that his team left India with a consolation victory.
Yes, it might have seemed like an insignificant fixture, bolted on at the end of a needless and essentially irrelevant tour that nobody wanted, but there’s no way that our boys wanted to leave the subcontinent empty handed. When India toured England this summer, they failed to register a single victory in eleven attempts. At least we avoided that ignominy I suppose.
James Morgan
One thing really annoyed me during the tour was the way Indian TV showed England taking wickets. The T20 game was a good example that for the whole of the Indian innings, no replays were shown of any wickets yet every incoming batsmen has their full stats and profile shown. Also, every Indian boundary is shown from 7 different angles in slo-mo, super slo-mo and super super slo-mo. The England 4s and 6s were barely shown once.