'Atrocious': Windies slam umpires in loss to Australia
West Indies star Carlos Brathwaite has claimed his team were on the wrong end of "dodgy" decisions that sent ripples through the dressing room in their 15-run loss to Australia.
The West Indies successfully overturned four separate "out" decisions in their doomed chase of 289, while umpire Chris Gaffaney also missed a no-ball call the delivery before Chris Gayle was dismissed.
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That would have made Mitchell Starc's lbw of the opener a free hit, while even that dismissal was only upheld by the "umpire's call" rule when Gayle reviewed it.
It came after Gayle had to review twice in one Starc over, the first after being caught behind and the second when given out lbw to one that hit him outside leg stump as it continued sliding down.
"I don't know if I'll be fined for saying it but I just think that the umpiring was a bit frustrating," Brathwaite said.
"Obviously three decisions in one over as far as I can remember being dodgy, it was frustrating and sent ripples through the dressing room.
"To lose Chris in a chase of 280, who can probably get 180 of them himself, broke the start that we wanted to have.
"But the umpires do their job, they try to do it to the best of their ability, we as players go out their to do our job as well, so there was no confrontation between the players and the umpires."
Viewers were also left fuming by the controversial umpiring decisions, accusing officials of deliberately favouring the Aussies.
Hard luck windies,umpires could have done better #cwc19 #AUSvWI pic.twitter.com/zeJ11xnca8
— Sumanth kate (@Sumukate139) June 6, 2019
Umpires are totally favouring Australia. Any appeal and finger goes up. If review would have not been their then windies would have been all out. #AUSvWI
— Chowkidar (@RUDRAPRATAP8) June 6, 2019
#CWC19 umpires seems to be very eager to out the windies batsman #AUSvWI ridiculous.....
— chandrasekhar biswas (@chandratogether) June 6, 2019
This is atrocious ump have lost count how many times umpire decision has been overruled by DRS. And the one time they got right was umpires call. Is it a surprise that all were against the windies. Looks like they have made up their mind to make sure windies don’t win. #AUSvWI
— Amit Jain (@amitjaincacs) June 6, 2019
Very oddly every half decisions from on-field umpires have gone against the Windies #AUSvWI
— AJ (@Almightymit) June 6, 2019
Umpires didn't miss any chance to get down windies favouring aussies.
That behaviuor put extra pressure on windies.@ICC how did you hire them? Cut their shitty finger that goes up every time aussie appeal.#AUSvWI— Qaisar Abbas (@qaisarcool10) June 6, 2019
Umpires during Windies batting today:#WIvAUS #AUSvWI #CWC19 pic.twitter.com/NyLEEO1nky
— Deepak Sharma (@Imdeepak_s) June 6, 2019
Brathwaite also claimed the officials had been too harsh on his side on the height of bouncers, after they gave away 24 wides.
The decisions prompted West Indies legend Michael Holding to label the umpiring as "atrocious", claiming they were being "intimidated" by over-appealing from the Australians.
When Windies captain Holder challenged successfully for a second time after being given out by the umpires for LBW, commentator and former West Indies great Michael Holding couldn't bite his tongue any longer.
“I am sorry but the umpiring in this game has been atrocious,” Holding said in commentary during the TV broadcast.
“For one, even when I was playing and they were not as strict as they are now, you were allowed one appeal. You don’t appeal two, three, four times to the umpire. That is the first thing.
“They are being intimidated (by Australia’s appealing), that means they are weak. This has been an atrocious bit of umpiring by both.”
Brathwaite said the decisions didn't cost his team the game but still doubled down on his criticism, as he claimed his team were regularly on the end of tough decisions.
"I'd like that for West Indies, we don't have to use all our reviews and that some of the other teams get a chance to use theirs because every time we get hit on our pad the finger goes up," Brathwaite said.
"When we hit the opposition on their pad, the finger stays down.
"So we have to use our reviews and it's always missing and then we have to use our reviews when we're batting as well and it's always clipping.
"I'm not a technology person, I don't know why that happens, I can just say what I have seen happen over the past few years."