Soon after India registered a series-levelling 75-run win in the second Test against Australia, captain Virat Kohli charged his counterpart Steve Smith for taking help from the team dressing room on making Decision Review System (DRS) appeals from the field – something that is prohibited under the laws of the game.
Smith admitted that he did seek help and also said that he shouldn’t have resorted to such tactics. Kohli just fell short of calling Smith’s move “cheating”. When an Aussie reporter asked Kohli whether he meant it was “cheating”, he retorted with a straight face: “I did not say that; you did.”
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Answering a question, Smith said: “Obviously, I got hit on the pad and looked down to [Peter] Handscomb and he said look out there. Then I just turned around and said ‘what do you reckon?’ It was a bit of brain-fade on my behalf. Shouldn't have done that.”
When asked again, Smith said: “I was looking at our boys. So shouldn't have done that. A bit of a brain-fade.”
Smith, however, maintained that there was no suggestion from Kohli that Australia received outside help for their DRS reviews. “No. I don't think so. That's the first time it happened. It was a brain-fade on my behalf.”
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Kohli, who came to the press conference after Smith, was unsparing in his views on the issue.
Excerpts from Kohli’s press conference:
On DRS Reviews and 'umpire's call': See, there are loopholes in every technology and system, there's no two ways about it. People are bound to make mistakes. At the moment, the call that's made on the field stays, and that's what everyone is playing with, and there've been a few instances where it's been a little tricky. It's been doubtful for people to understand what's exactly going on. The benefit of doubt used to go to the batsman before, but now that seems to have gone out of the window, and we’ve also not been that consistent with taking the right DRS calls. I think we need to get better with that, but one thing being that we take our decisions on the field ourselves. We don't ask for confirmation upstairs, so I think that's one thing that's pretty consistent with us.
On Smith's ‘brain fade’:
I saw that happening twice when I was batting out there. I pointed it out to the umpire as well: that it's happened twice; that I've seen their players looking upstairs for confirmation, and that's why the umpire was at him. When he [Smith] turned back, the umpire knew exactly what was going on, because we observed that, we told match referee also, and the umpires, that they've been doing that for the last three days and this has to stop -- because there's a line that you don't cross on the cricket field, because sledging and playing against the opponents is different. But, I don't want to mention the word, but it falls in that bracket. I would never do something like that on the cricket field.
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On whether that word was ‘cheating’:
I didn't say that. You did.
