Tim Paine refused to blame Australia's astonishing Headingley loss on umpire Joel Wilson who failed to spot Ben Stokes was lbw right before he became England's match-winner. (LEEDS TEST HIGHLIGHTS | SCORECARD)
Stokes made an unbeaten 135 and struck the winning runs as England chased down a record 359 in the third Test to claim a one-wicket victory and prevent Australia retaining the urn with two matches to spare. (CRICKET NEWS)
The all-rounder was part of a last-wicket stand worth 76 with Jack Leach, but Australia were convinced that alliance had been broken when England still needed two runs to win as Stokes was wrapped on the pads by Nathan Lyon when attempting to slog-sweep.
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With Lyon shrieking in appeal, Wilson remained unmoved, and Australia captain Paine was unable to call upon DRS having squandered his final review when he unsuccessfully challenged a not-out lbw decision against Leach in the previous over.
Had Australia reviewed the decision not to give Stokes out, umpire Wilson's call would have been reversed and Paine's side would have retained the urn.
Asked if he had seen that replay back, Paine said: "No, I saw it live. That's all I needed to see. I don't want to watch that again."
Wilson came under fire for his poor decision-making in the first Test at Headingley, yet Paine pointed to his own inability to make the correct calls rather than lay the blame at the umpire's door.
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"I have no issue with that, we can't control that," Paine said of the umpiring.
"I don't think I've got a referral correct the whole series so I can't sit here and bag the umpires and we have got to focus on what we can control, and umpiring decisions isn't one of them.
"I'm sure it is something that will be written about, but we also had other opportunities to win the game and opportunities on other days with our batting and we didn't take them. So to sit down and single out an umpire is unnecessary, he is no different to everyone else - he is allowed to make mistakes."
However, Stokes was perplexed that the ball tracking even showed Lyon's delivery would have gone on to hit the stumps.
"I have seen the DRS on my lbw shout, which obviously shows up with three reds [for out], but DRS has got that completely wrong as it flicked my front pad first and didn't spin," Stokes argued.
"It shows how crucial it is to make sure you use your reviews. When you get to a situation like that, you still need one.
"If they had one they would have used it and ended up winning. I still cannot believe it was three reds. I thought as soon as it hit me that it was sliding down leg because there was no spin."
