I Don't Think the Umpires Look at the Front-line for No-balls Anymore: Ricky Ponting

Former Australian skipper Ricky Ponting believes the on-field umpires don’t check the front foot for no-balls. He feels it’s quite hard on the fielding side to cope with it. The modern-day great batter said some ‘blatantly obvious’ instances of India’s spearhead Ishant Sharma over-stepping and getting away with them meant the on-field umpires aren’t checking it on a regular basis.

Veteran cricketer Ponting feels the decision seemed to be only on the third umpire in case a wicket falls.

Ricky Ponting not impressed with the umpires

On Sunday (December 09), trapped Aaron Finch in front and umpire Kumar Dharmasena raised his dreaded finger. But Finch received life as review cleared revealed the pacer has over-stepped the line. Television broadcasters kept on showing Ishant continuously overs-stepping, but there were no calls from the umpires.

Ishant Sharma overstepped, went unnoticed

“I’ve said this for a lot of years; I honestly don’t think the umpires look at the front line anymore,” Ponting told cricket.com.au.

 

“Some of the ones we’ve seen today … he was 4-6 inches over the line. I don’t think the umpires are looking and I certainly don’t think they were looking at those ones because they were blatantly obvious ones,” Ponting added.

Earlier, Ishant scalped the vital wicket of Travis Head this morning. It was a short ball and hurried onto the batter; who could only guide it to the gully region. India earned a 15-run lead after bowling the hosts out for 235 in the first innings. Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane went on to make respective fifties as India set a target of 323.

However, Australia in response falls short of 31 runs. India went on to wrap hosts innings on 291 to take a 1-0 lead in the four-match series.