Former Australian wristspinner Brad Hogg was all praise for Indian umpires Nitin Menon and Virender Sharma after their impressive work amidst the bad light in Kanpur in the closing hour of Day 5 of the first India-New Zealand Test on November 29.
Hogg took note of the “wonderful job” done by Menon and Sharma as they kept a regular check of the dwindling brightness at the Green Park and communicated properly with the two teams.
With time running out in the Test, India required just one more wicket to end with a victory. But Menon and Sharma showed zero bias at that stage of the game, bringing the light metre out after the end of every over before finally going off for the bad light.
The Test match ended in a draw, which New Zealand would’ve happily taken considering they were nine down for just 165, chasing a score of 284.
“Umpires did a wonderful job dealing with bad light. They are Indian umpires, the way that they controlled themselves in the last hour of play was superb. They kept getting the meter out, kept communicating with the players all the time. They had full control of the situation,”
said Hogg over his Youtube channel.
There were few marginal errors and reviews reversed in the early part of the Test match. But overall, Menon and Virender did a commendable job for the Test, especially near the close of Day 5 as Hogg pointed out.
India, however, would be in great pain to have missed out on a victory despite their fantastic comeback with the ball in the last sessions of the final afternoon. Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel bowled exceedingly well to break through New Zealand’s resistance after a wicket-less first session.
But in the end, a slow, low surface and the diminishing light up north won over their world-class skillset and allowed the Kiwis to sneak through to a draw.
The next Test of the two-match series kicks off on December 3 in Mumbai.
