All-rounder Glenn Maxwell said he and his team mates were in no doubt that Australia opener D’Arcy Short was wrongfully given run out in the second T20I against Pakistan in Dubai on Friday night.
Short was given out by the TV umpire Shozab Raza when his opening partner Aaron Finch drove the ball straight back at spinner Imad Wasim.
The ball cannoned off Imad’s finger tips and onto the stumps and umpire Asif Yaqoob sent it upstairs to see if the batsmen at the non-striking end had grounded his bat.
Raza adjudged Short out although replays seemed to show his bat clearly grounded.
“We certainly had a view as a team that we thought his bat was clearly grounded behind the line,” said Maxwell after the match, “and the third umpire thought otherwise.”
Pakistan's bowlers do it again!
— ICC (@ICC) October 26, 2018
Glenn Maxwell's 37-ball 52 goes in vain as a tight bowling performance hands Pakistan an 11-run win in Dubai and an unassailable 2-0 series lead! #PAKvAUS scorecard ➡️ https://t.co/GMoXSkZ6T2 pic.twitter.com/Yq6ZdOpqKV
Asked if Short was the first batsmen to be given out ‘Optical illusion’ Maxwell quipped: “Maybe the third umpire pressed the wrong button. We’ve all made mistakes.”
“As we saw it in the change room there was any doubt,” he continued, “that he had his bat behind the line.
“Even if you look at the way he’s holding his bat it’s very hard to hold it above the line with the bat sitting out of his gloves.
“It was an interesting call but we had to live with that and get on with the job in hand.
“It’s not something you can actually change while you’re out there, so there’s no point in dwelling on it as a batting team, you just have to get out there and score the runs.”
Maxwell, who scored 52 off 37 balls, said he and Nathan Coulter-Nile (27 off 17) still believed they could win the match going into the final overs. The pair combined for a partnership of 59 from just 5.4 overs.
“The conditions were certainly against us,” said Maxwell, “it was very slow and one side of the ground was hard to hit to. Though Nathan proved that wrong by hitting a six over deep mid-wicket on the long side.
“When they bowled slower balls into the wicket it was very hard to hit, very hard to get your timing because it was a bit two paced.
“Every now and then it would skid a bit faster through even with the same slower ball, so it was hard to get your timing and I thought Nathan did a great job at the end.
“For a guy coming in at No8 and strike the ball as clean as he did and take the pressure of me and able to get us at least to the last over.
“It’s hard in those sort of chases, you can do your dash before you get to the last over. At least we were able to take it to the last over and give ourselves and opportunity.
“Unfortunately we just fell short in the end.”
"Maybe the third umpire pressed the wrong button. We've all made mistakes" - Glenn Maxwell
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) October 26, 2018
"I don't know why (there was) so much reaction because clearly it is out" - Sarfraz Ahmed
What's your call? #PAKvAUS https://t.co/Tsjp2jIABC
Maxwell also paid tribute to Pakistan who he said have clearly proved their No1 world ranking in T20I.
“You’ve got to look at the opposition as well and playing in their conditions, they are very good players in their own conditions,” he said.
“We’ve seen that throughout the series, they’ve played extremely good cricket. They’ve played very well to their game plan, they’ve stuck to it.
“They’ve been very well drilled and they’ve executed better for longer, both bat and ball.
“It’s exactly the same as we play our T20 cricket when we’re back in our conditions, where we’re clinical, we know what we have to do in our conditions and it’s hard for teams to beat us in our conditions.
“It’s exactly the same for Pakistan in their conditions. We’ve obviously got a bit of work to do winning games over here, winning games in the sub-continent against sub-continent teams.
“I feel like we improved from last game that’s for sure, batting and bowling.
“I thought we did really well to restrict them to 147 but once again we lost too many wickets in that middle period and probably made it a bit tough for ourselves at the end.”
