Salman Agha not sure of decision in Fakhar dismissal as he believes that the evidence was inconclusive to give it out.
Pakistan skipper Salman Agha was not sure that the right decision was given by the TV umpire to dismiss opener Fakhar Zaman.
Fakhar had given Pakistan a bright start to the contest, and was looking to take the game away from India before the dismissal sent him packing. He had made 15 of 9 balls with 3 boundaries in his innings.
The Dismissal
Fakhar got an outside edge after Hardik Pandya rolled his fingers over the ninth delivery. Sanju Samson, however, had to reach forward to get his gloves beneath the ball because there wasn’t much speed on it. India, pleased that he had done so, raised an appeal.
After a few glances at the replay, TV umpire Ruchira Palliyaguruge determined that the catch was cleanly made and that the ball bounced in the gloves instead than just in front.
Salman Agha has his say on the incident.
Post-match, Agha guardedly disagreed. “Umpires can make mistakes,” he said. “But it did look like it bounced ahead of the keeper to me. I might be wrong. The way [Fakhar] was batting, if he had batted through the powerplay, we would probably have scored 190. But those are calls for umpires to make. To me, it looked like it bounced before the keeper. I might be mistaken, but so might be the umpire.”
The dismissal didn’t really slow Pakistan’s progress at the time. Sahibzada Farhan at the other end zoomed along to a 34-ball half-century as Pakistan soared to 55 in the powerplay and 91 in the first ten, both Pakistani records against India, although Saim Ayub was unable to score at the same pace.
“The batting was a lot better today, and that’s a positive,” Agha said. “The way our start was, we could have scored 15 more. But when the ball goes soft after ten overs, it’s not as easy to bat. But we didn’t bowl as well in the powerplay and got punished. But our start should have ensured we scored 180.”