LONDON: England batsman Eoin Morgan, who was at the non-striker’s end when the Ian Bell run-out controversy happened during the second Test against India, claims that the confusion was caused by umpire Asad Rauf’s ambiguous gestures.
Bell was run out when he walked off the crease presuming that the ball had gone for four at the stroke of tea only to realise later that it was in play when he headed for the dressing room. But he was reinstated after India decided to take back the appeal on being requested by England coach Andy Flower and captain Andrew Strauss
Morgan was at the non-striker’s end at that time and revealed that Rauf didn’t quite give a clear answer as to whether the ball was still in play when he asked him.
“I said ‘Is it four?’ And Asad (Rauf, the umpire) nodded his head. No, he didn’t nod his head. He sort of gestured. So I just turned round and walked off presuming the ball was dead,” Morgan told ‘The Daily Telegraph’.
“It was a weird one really because Asad at the end of the over doesn’t actually call ‘over’; he never does. He just gestures to the bowler,” he claimed.
Bell and Morgan were then stopped by reserve umpire Tim Robinson on the boundary line.
“Tim just told us to hold on because they were checking to see if it had gone for four and what action they were going to take because the bails had been taken off,” he recalled. Morgan insisted that neither he nor Bell had a clue about what was happening in the middle.
“I wasn’t really worried until I walked off and Belly told me they’d taken the bails off,” he said.
“In the dressing room we didn’t really know what was going on.” Morgan said.
“Billy Bowden (the television umpire) came up to our dressing room three times during the interval to say they hadn’t retracted their appeal,” he elaborated.
“Literally two minutes before Matt (Prior) and I were about to go out, the message came through that Belly was still in.” (PTI)
