The ignominy of as many as seven umpiring howlers from Steve Bucknor during the Sydney Test in 2008 single-handedly led India to a dramatic downfall. In the match, the tourists were well-positioned to pull out a draw, but more than Australia’s performance, it was shambolic umpiring that made the difference.
And now, after 12 years, when Bucknor finally admitted that his mistake “might have cost India the match”, this didn’t go down well with Irfan Pathan.
Former Indian all-rounder slammed Bucknor and expressed his frustrations regarding the latter’s below-par umpiring in the latest episodes of Cricket Connected Show for Star Sports.
“No matter how much you accept your mistakes, what’s done is done, we lost the Test match. I remember, I played my first Test in Australia – that was in Adelaide, my debut game [in 2003] – and we won that Test after 21 [22] years in Australia. And losing a Test match, just because of umpiring errors? Not going to make any difference, no matter what umpires say now,” said Pathan.
“As a cricketer, we’re used to getting bad decisions, sometimes in our bowling, sometimes in our batting. And we get frustrated by that and then we forget about it. But this Sydney Test match, it was not just one mistake.”
“There were about seven mistakes that cost us the game. There were mistakes where Andrew Symonds was playing, and he got out nearly, I remember, three times, and the umpire didn’t give him out,” the left-hander added.
Pathan further recalled that even if a single decision of Andrew Symonds getting caught at 30 had gone India’s way, they would have comfortably secured a historic victory. Symonds went on to score a massive century for Australia.
“He was the Man of the Match, we lost by 122 runs. If only one decision against Andrew Symonds would have been corrected, we would have won that game easily,” Pathan concluded.
