Contentious Hawk-eye call infuriates Pakistan skipper Shan Masood following his dismissal post DRS call at 145.
Contentious Hawk-eye trajectory has got Pakistan captain Shan Masood baffled post his dismissal yesterday.
Masood feels that his dismissal on the fourth and final day of the Cape Town Test match against South Africa was due to a ball-tracking error. Umpire Nitin Menon declared Masood not-out due to left-arm quick Kwena Maphaka’s bowling, but Hawkeye judged the ball was striking off stump, and the decision was overturned. Masood made 145 in Pakistan’s second innings.
Masood believed that the images Hawkeye vomited did not reflect the actual events of that delivery.
“It’s simple,” Masood said after the end of the game. “It was an outswinger. If you see the ball that I was beaten by, it jagged away a long way. I was beaten on the outside edge, and it was shown as an inswinger. I was baffled by that to be very honest.”
Before that delivery, Masood had appeared largely unconcerned on the fourth morning after batting more or less aimlessly during his innings for more than six hours across two days. Masood tried to defend it by squaring up and hitting him on the back pad, but Maphaka bowled from left-arm over to the left-handed Masood, landed it on a length, and got the ball to stay a touch low while straightening beyond the outside edge.
After reviewing, Hawkeye concluded that Masood was hit by the ball in line with off-stump and that there was no discernible deviation from the stumps that would have spared him.
“With the naked eye, you could see it felt like it was outside the line as well. I just felt it was a different picture. I didn’t get hit where Hawkeye was showing it to be hit. It hit more on the outside of the leg than the inside; it shows it on the inside. That’s not an inswinger. I was beaten by an outswinger and that’s what the umpire thought as well. That’s all I can say to that.”
When the images appeared on the screen, Masood didn’t try to hide his annoyance. He remained motionless for a long time, making a disapproving gesture. He’d still had a look of annoyance and rage on his face when he turned to saunter away. He mimicked the movement of the ball by making another outward arcing motion with his hands as he approached the pavilion.
“It’s up to the administrators to see if that’s a fair decision or not. I certainly felt that technology didn’t show the trajectory of how that ball was,” Masood said.