"Kumar Dharmasena Told Me...": Stuart Broad Reveals Chat With Umpire As Steve Smith Survives Close Call

England bowler Stuart Broad disclosed that umpire Kumar Dharmasena told him that in the arguable call of run out, Australian batter Steven Smith would have been given out if zing bails had been in use. On the day two of the fifth Ashes series, Smith was saved from a run out on the "benefit of the doubt" to batter. At first, it seemed that Smith was short of his ground. But, after seeing replays, umpire Nitin Menon ruled that the bail was not completely dislodged from both grooves of Jonny Bairstow until Smith was in his crease.

Bairstow had knock off a bail with his arm and when the ball reached on his grooves, Smith was in the crease. 

"I honestly don't know the rules, I think there was enough grey area to give that not out. It looked like benefit of the doubt sort of stuff, first angle I saw I thought out, and then the side angle it looked like the bails probably dislodged," Broad said as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.

"Kumar said to me if it was zing bails it would been given out, I don't really understand the reasoning why," he further added. 

Under the Laws, the bail has to be completely removed. Law 29.1 states: "The wicket is broken when at least one bail is completely removed from the top of the stumps, or one or more stumps is removed from the ground."

Tom Smith's Cricket Umpiring and Scoring, MCC's Official Interpretation of the Laws of Cricket, adds: "For the purposes of dismissal - a bail has been removed at the moment that both ends of it leave their grooves."

Smith has also started walking back to the pavillion as he had also thought that he was outside the crease.

"I saw the initial replay and saw the bail come up, and when I looked at it the second time looked like Jonny might have knocked the bail before the ball had come," Smith said. 

"Looked pretty close at that stage, if the ball had hit at the initial stage when the bail came then think I was well out of my ground."

"I know now that he's very quick, the next one we hit out there when it was a similar push for two, I was like, gee, this guy's tearing around the boundary, he's coming at pace. Had I known that previously I might have just stayed there for the single," he added. 

If Smith was given out, then Australia would be 194 for 8. With luck on his side, Smith went on to score 71. 

"Did I pull the trigger too early? Maybe. But had I not got out, Murph might not have come in and smacked 30 like he did. We are in the position we are because of our batters, you can't fault what the bottom few did. Thought the partnerships they put together were outstanding." 

"A lot of us got starts, the scorecards are very similar in a way, and we weren't able to capatalise and [turn] one of those partnerships that were 40-50 into 100-150 and that gives us a decent lead. Bit disappointed from that aspect," the Australian batter added.

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