Veteran Indian batsman Rahul Dravid on Wednesday said that he did not ask for a review of the umpires decision in his bizarre dismissal during the third Test against England as he was confused how a sound had come though he was sure he did not edge the ball.
 Dravid said instead of trusting his own instincts, he had relied on the judgement of umpire Simon Taufel and non-striker partner Tendukar, who both felt that he was out, and the thought of his shoelace hitting the bat never came to his mind. © AFP |
Dravid was ruled caught behind off James Anderson in the second
Indian innings of the third Test at Edgbaston when actually his bat had
hit the shoelace and he hadn't edged the ball.
Dravid said instead of trusting his own instincts, he had relied on
the judgement of umpire Simon Taufel and non-striker partner Tendukar, who both felt that he was out, and the thought of his shoelace hitting the bat never came to his mind.
"My first instinct was that I had not hit it. But there was a loud
noise, and I couldn't figure out where it had come from. I knew I hadn't
hit the ground, or my pad, or my shoe, so it confused me as to where
the noise had come from. But I didn't think I had touched it," Dravid
said.
"So I asked my partner and he said there was a big noise. So I had
Simon Taufel, one of the best umpires in the world, ruling me out, my
partner saying it was out and I myself had heard the noise. I thought
maybe it was just one of those instances where I hadn't felt the edge,"
Dravid said in a video interview to Daily Telegraph.
"As soon as I got back to the dressing room I told the guys I had to
see the replay. I wanted to know where I had touched it. I could never
have imagined it was a shoelace."
Dravid said had he sought review and batted along with Tendulkar,
India could have given a better account of itself in the match, which it
lost by an innings and 242 runs.
"It was disappointing because I've been batting well and if I had
batted longer with Sachin, who played well in that innings, and if we
had seen off Anderson's spell before lunch, we could have at least put
up a bigger fight," said Dravid who became the second most prolific Test
batsman after Tendulkar during the tour.
Dravid did not mind praising England pace battery for their tremendous performance in the series.
"It's been a hard series for a combination of reasons. The pitches
have been conducive to good swing bowling, and also the quality of the
England bowling has been superb. Their seamers have bowled beautiful
lengths, and have pitched the ball up. We expected England to be good in
this series, but we expected ourselves to be better."
Dravid though said England's test will come when they tour India for a Test series next year.
"You have to do well in conditions in which you haven't done well.
England haven't won in India for 27 years, so they have to do that.
They've got the team and the skills to do it but it still needs to be
done. Hopefully we can stop them from doing that," he said.
The former captain said India will "play for pride" in the fourth
Test and their "goal now is to get back to number one position".
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