Marnus Labuschange is adamant his escape from a disputed catch was the correct call, despite considerable protest from the South African side.
In the 40th over, with South Africa desperate for a breakthrough at the SCG, Labuschagne edged Marco Jansen through to first slip, with Simon Harmer confidently claiming the catch.
However, the decision was sent upstairs to third umpire Richard Kettleborough, who after exhaustively reviewing the footage declared the ball had bounced.
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Asked after stumps whether he was out, Labuschange replied: “No, clearly not. I was still batting.”
“It was just one of those ones. If there’s no TV, I’m walking. That’s how the game works.
“With the amount of slow motion footage you see, you see his fingers push and split open. According to the technicality, some of the ball is touching the grass regardless of whether his fingers are under it or not.
“It’s just hard because back in the day, or even before we had this technology and camera work, they’d send you packing.’’
Paceman Anrich Nortje, however, cast a far different perception on the opposing side.
“All of us thought it was out,’’ he said.
“Simon was convinced it went straight in. I think when you look at the front on (vision), when you look at the angles, to us it looks like the fingers are underneath it.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t get that one. I think it would have been a big one at that stage. We were convinced it’s out.”
It was since explained Kettleborough only had world feed camera angles available to him to review.
Broadcast cameras later showed an ultra-zoom shot that appeared to be much more definitive in the favour of South Africa.
“I feel as though the South Africans can be quite aggrieved here,” former Test batter Michael Hussey said on Fox Cricket.
“The soft signal was out. I felt like the ball landed on the fingers and he was able to scoop it up.
“His fingers are down, it hits the top of the fingers, pushed it back.
“I don’t think there’s conclusive evidence there to overturn that decision. That’s just my opinion.”
