3 minute read

Aaron Finch told Steve Smith he believed he was out of his crease before the third umpire controversially gave him out stumped in Australia's loss to India.

Aaron Finch admitted to batting partner Steve Smith that his controversial stumping dismissal was the right decision by the third umpire in Australia's 36-run loss to India.

Finch was given out by third umpire Michael Gough on 33, after more than two minutes of deliberation on what the official labelled a "very tight" decision.

Some replays appeared to show Finch had a small portion of his boot behind the line, while there were other questions over when the bail was fully removed.

But on the field Finch conceded to batting partner Steve Smith he felt he was out, caught marginally short of his crease.

"He thought he was out," Smith admitted.

"I don't really know, I saw what I could see on the screen and it looked pretty close.

"It was one of those ones that was pretty close, the umpire made the decision and we ran with it."

Indian wicketkeeper KL Rahul was also confident the right decision had been made.

"It looked pretty out to me," Rahul said.

"The minute we went up you could tell Finchy knew that he was out."

Meanwhile there was further drama in the 23rd over when Rohit Sharma appeared to fake field a ball, pretending to throw it in without it in his hands.

Under rules passed in 2017, players cannot deliberately distract, deceive or obstruct a batsman, or else risk a five-run penalty.

Marnus Labuschagne, who was the first player to be penalised for fake fielding in December 2017, and attempted to point out Rohit's actions to the on-field umpires.

However no penalty was forthcoming, while it realistically would have mattered little given the end result.