Perth Test: Team India's 'mental fuse' blows on the first day, Marnus Labuschagne gets a strange 'life'
Delhi: In the Border Gavaskar Trophy, where there is a fight for every run and every wicket, can you imagine that even if an Australian batsman is out cleanly, he is saved from getting out because Team India is properly focused on it? Was not on the game since. That's why there was no appeal for out. Now you know that in cricket, unless the bowling team appeals for out, the batsman cannot be given out. This probably happened because Labuschagne was getting out in a manner which is rarely seen in cricket.
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In fact, on the first day at the Optus Stadium in Perth, when Australia was struggling at 19/3 in reply to Team India's 150, Labuschagne was in the match for the team. Despite being hit on the body by the ball and being beaten several times, he remained on the pitch. Firstly, Virat Kohli dropped his easy catch at first slip. After this, in the 13th over, Mohammed Siraj's third ball hit the pads of Labuschagne. After this, when the ball started going towards the stumps, Labuschagne pushed it away from the bat. Siraj and some other fielders got excited after seeing his action but did not appeal for out for this under the cricket law of 'Obstruction of the Field'. According to the accepted cricket law code, he could have been given out if there was an appeal.
Law 37 of obstruction in the field means that the batsman, during the game, blocks the ball while it is in 'play' and prevents the fielding team from taking action such as catch or run-out. This blockage can occur in many ways. In this case of Labuschagne, he was preventing the ball from returning to the stumps with his bat.
There are many such examples in international cricket when the fielding team did not appeal to dismiss the batsman and the reasons for this could be different, but what Team India did in Perth was a big mistake. It was a good luck that despite this life, Labuschagne did not last long and his slow 2 runs remained the talk of the town. Now Labuschagne has the second slowest 2 runs in Test cricket for Australia. The record is of Bill Lawry's 2 runs in 55 balls in 1969. In 2001, Jason Gillespie scored 2 runs in 47 balls. This 'brain fade' of Team India was a special incident of better counter-attack on the first day and one of the big mistakes made by Jasprit Bumrah during his captaincy.
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