Credit: Twitter
After becoming the first batter in international cricket to get timed out during an ODI World Cup 2023 match against Bangladesh, the former Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews has shared screenshots of the video evidence to counteract umpires for his historic dismissal. This moment was a difference maker in the big encounter between two of the Asian cricket nations, which went the way of Bangladesh, who got the better of Sri Lanka by three wickets.
For the unversed, Angelo Mathews was declared timed out at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi, when he faced an unexpected delay due to an issue with the strap of his helmet, which prevented him from taking strike by reaching the popping crease within the stipulated time. When the 36-year-old was ready to face the first ball in his batting innings after the dismissal of Sadeera Samarawickrama, the captain of Bangladesh, Shakib Al Hasan had already made the appeal to the umpires on the field, which led to the timed-out dismissal.
Also Watch: Angelo Mathews gives a send-off to Shakib Al Hasan by pointing at his wrist during SL vs BAN
Notably, as per the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 rule number 40.1.1, “After the fall of a wicket or the retirement of a batter, the incoming batter must, unless Time has been called, be ready to receive the ball, or for the other batter to be ready to receive the next ball within 2 minutes of the dismissal or retirement. If this requirement is not met, the incoming batter will be out, Timed out.”
During the mid-innings break, the fourth umpire of the match, Adrian Holdstock spoke about the timed-out dismissal of Angelo Mathews, “This afternoon, the batter wasn't ready to receive the ball within those two minutes even before the strap, what became an issue for him.”
It led to Angelo Mathews taking to his official X account to counteract the fourth umpire in the aftermath of his timed-out dismissal. The first of his two posts about the matter read, “4th umpire is wrong here! Video evidence shows I still had 5 more seconds even after the helmet gave away! Can the 4th umpire rectify this, please? I mean safety is paramount as I just couldn’t face the bowler without a helmet”.
Watch the video here:
In the next post, he shared the screenshots of the video evidence and said, “Proof! From the time catch was taken and the time the helmet strap coming off”. As per the timestamp on the screenshot, Sadeera Samarawickrama was out at 15:48:50:16 hours, while Angelo Mathews made his way to the playing field at 15:50:45:14 hours, which is roughly around 1:55 minutes as per the calculations of the all-round cricketer.
