Sachin and UDRS Who would have forgotten Mr Steve Bucknor wearing his round hat and giving Sachin out LBW when he was ducking a Mcgrath delivery in a test match in Australia. That day Mr Bucknor added one more mode of dismissal in cricket, SBW(Shoulder before wicket).
Third test in Australia in 2008, the ball hit him on the top of the pad and at the time of contact Tendulkar was jumping in the air, replays showed it was indeed high and going over the top of the stumps. Tendulkar was batting on 71, and he could have a got hatrick of centuries, if umpire Asad Rauf had not raised his fingers.
More recently, in an ODI against Australia at Mohali, when Ashok de Silva adjudged him LBW, when ball was missing the stumps.
There have been countless incidents in Sachin’s career when he has been given out even though television replays showed that it was not the case. Many times the master was batting in nineties, or was taking India to victory or atleast preventing the loss, as was the case till many years(If Sachin gets out, switch off the TV).
Though people will say or atleast the purists will say that in cricket ‘its part and parcel of the game’, ‘you get some while you loose some’. Neither I am purist nor I will buy that line, I am just an ardent cricket lover who just loves the way Sachin plays and continues to play year after year, match after match.
When this Umpire decision review system(UDRS) was introduced in cricket in 2009 and was very effectively utilized in this year world cup, makes me wonder, what would have happened if UDRS was there when Sachin was batting on 92 in Barbados test in 1997 and was given out on a no-ball. He missed the century and India lost the match by 38 runs. Or in 2008, when he was given out LBW by Simon Tauffel, he was batting on 91.
These are just few of the examples, where he got(wrongly) dismissed in his nineties. There are similar innumerable instances when he has been given out. What a pity, if UDRS was there when Sachin had started his career, we would have got century of century long long ago. May be today we would have been contemplating double century of centuries.