Irfan Pathan Slams Steve Bucknor After Former Umpire Accepts His Mistake In 2008 Sydney Test

Former India allrounder Irfan Pathan has slammed former umpire Steve Bucknor after the latter’s recent comments on the infamous Sydney Test of 2008. The fiercely fought series between India and Australia in 2007/08 was marred by some umpiring blunders during the Sydney Test.

India lost the match in a dramatic fashion and had gone on to conceded the series too. This was the same match where Australia had accused Harbhajan Singh of racially abusing Andrew Symonds. Recently, Bucknor acknowledged his high-profile mistakes in the Test but Irfan Pathan has made it clear he is having none of it.

India lost the match by 122 runs, and more than a decade after that game, Bucknor  admitted his mistake last week. Speaking to Mid-Day, the former ICC umpire admitted his mistakes cost India the match. Bucknor is understood to be referring to the decision to not give Andrew Symonds out, when he had been caught behind off Ishant Sharma when he was on 30. Symonds went on to score 162, and put Australia on the front foot in the match.

Irfan Pathan slams Bucknor:

Speaking on Star Sports Cricket Connected, Irfan Pathan came down hard on Bucknor for his mistakes in the game. The former allrounder stated India would have won that match had even one of those mistakes hadn’t been made.

“No matter how much you accept your mistakes, what’s done is done, we lost the Test match,” he said.

“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.

“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.

“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,” added Irfan Pathan.

The former India international further stated that he saw his teammates angry for the first time as umpiring decisions went against India.

“It was not just frustration,” he said. “For the first time, I saw Indian cricketers were angry. Fans had only one thing in mind – that they [umpires] were doing it purposely. Obviously, as a cricketer, we can’t think like that.

“We’ve to think, ‘OK. These things happen, and we’ve to move forward’. But seven mistakes? Are you kidding me? That was unbelievable and indigestible for us,” he added.

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