There was a common sight on Day 2 of the third Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series between India and Australia. It was quite often seen that the Australian wicketkeeper Alex Carey was seen removing the bails and skipper Steve Smith would quickly appeal for a stumping. Australia has found a loophole in the rule and they exploited it to its fullest on Thursday and even got two important dismissals through it.
However, the sneaky trick was exposed on social media by experts before a former India cricketer highlighted it. Australia discovered that each time a stumping appeal was made, that leg umpire was immediately sent upstairs where the third umpire, according to the rule, checked for an outside edge as well.
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By this logic, if the bowling team manages to convince the square-leg umpire for a stumping appeal, it gets immediately checked for an outside edge as well, implying that they wouldn’t lose a review on potential caught-behind dismissals.
The tactic worked for Australia when they dismissed Ravichandran Ashwin in the first innings on Day 1 in Indore. The India batter had got a nick off a delivery from Matthew Kuhnemann. However, Carey on completing the caught behind whipped off the bails. Square-leg umpire Joel Wilson sent it upstairs for stumping review, but before that got checked, the third umpire found that Ashwin had feathered the delivery and was dismissed for 3.
Talking about the same during a chat on Cricbuzz, former India cricketer Parthiv Patel highlighted how Smith made the most of the loophole and urged for a change in the DRS rule.
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Parthiv Patel said, “Steve Smith is aware of that and he exploited the loophole. The on-field umpire should avoid going to the third umpire if he is sure that it’s not out when there is an appeal for a stumping. The ideal solution is that the TV umpire should only review the stumping if the appeal is made only for a stumping. A caught behind should not be checked unless the fielding captain opts for a review.”
