Leg Before Wicket (Keeper)
Let me first congratulate the Indian team to have won the series, although it was obvious! Sehwag and Yuvraj were ruthless and Sri Lanka truly deserves this punishment, having playing with 12 players, of course including the umpire.
Coming back to the title of the story, Sri Lankan umpires has re-defined LBW by just adding ‘Keeper’ to the wicket. Sachin was given out LBW 3 times in as many matches and none of them were right, of course in the re-defined sense, leg before wicket keeper, he was out. Having said that, Sri Lanka have robbed the gentlemen-ship of the game from the series. It is a sad excuse on a bowlers point to appeal for an LBW when you know there was a nick from the pad. No one other than the bowler can tell that there was a nick to the bat. And, before you yell out the appeal, your heart tells you that you are asking something wrong. Ethics, by the way are completely rubbished in ths series.
Sri Lankan umpiring took the game to new lows. India is a far better, strong, superior, mature and balanced than Sri Lanka and even in their wildest dreams, Sri Lanka would not and could not defeat this outfit as long as the Indian Team plays, well quite normally. Sorry Sri Lanka for being so brutal, but it is a fact. You tried, having the umpire pulled into the team, but did not work too well. But, you have robbed the fans from witnessing magical batting display of the little master. You have robbed from all those young cricketers who idolize him from witnessing the best batting display in our times.
On a given day Sehwag, Sachin, Gambhir, Yuvraj and Raina together can add 200 runs to the score card in less than 30 overs. The only way out to win a match is to get these guys all out under 200 and under 30 overs, PERIOD. Now, this is totally impossible given their current form and Sri Lanka found another way out…umpiring.
I hope the issue will be raised by the BCCI to have fair umpiring standards and the opposite captain has the guts to revert the deliberate decision given out by the umpires. Loosing is not against pride, but winning by cunning does.