The on-field umpire changing his decision is quite a common sight on the cricket field these days, but it generally happens when the decision is referred upstairs either by the batting or the fielding side, however, what happened in one of the BBL games today is that the on-field umpire Bruce Oxenford changed his own decision within a second without being referred.
It was a game between Melbourne Stars and Perth Scorchers and because of a number of COVID cases in their camp, the Stars had to field a team with quite a few inexperienced players. As expected, the Scorchers dominated the game batting first, but a depleted Stars’ side was a bit hard done by the umpire as well.
While trying to hook a bouncer towards the end of the innings, the Scorchers’ finisher Ashton Turner seemed to top-edge a delivery straight into the hands of the keeper and since there was a definite sound, the umpire Bruce Oxenford raised his finger straight away, but much to the surprise of everyone, Oxenford then put his finger down the next second and signalled that the batsman was not out.
Ashton Turner indicated to umpire Bruce Oxenford that he was not out
Bruce Oxenford did so because Turner seemed to indicate to him that the sound that he heard was actually the sound of the ball brushing the helmet, rather than the ball brushing the top-edge of the bat and Oxenford, surprisingly, believed the batsman, which is something that is not very common on a cricket field. Since there is no DRS in the BBL, the decision couldn’t have been referred either, and the bowling side had to accept the final decision of Oxenford.
Umpire first took the decision it's "out" then batsman signalled it was hit on the helmet and then umpire changed the decision to "not-out" in BBL. pic.twitter.com/hNw9ubbWGO
— Johns. (@CricCrazyJohns) January 2, 2022
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The Stars eventually ended up losing the game by a massive margin of 50 runs and although it would be fair to say that the reason behind the loss wasn’t Oxenford’s decision and the Stars were actually completely outplayed in all three facets of the game, but Oxenford’s decision still became one of the talking points of the game.
The commentators were talking on-air that it might become a precedent in future where a batsman, even after being given out by the umpire, will try to persuade the umpire to change the decision because it has happened once now, and it’s not really an ideal precedent to set for cricket at the highest level. Ashton Turner, however, couldn’t do much in the game and got run out for 27.
