James Pattinson Falls Victim to Umpiring Error in the First Ashes Test

As the first Ashes test kicks off, it is England all the way as the World Cup champions dominated much of the session. Australia kicked off the batting, but seemed to crumble as the England bowlers took them apart. However, just like in the World Cup, the 2019 Ashes series was also beset by umpiring errors and James Pattinson found out the hard way.

Stuart Broad was bowling and had seemingly got Pattinson out for an LBW, ending his stint at the crease. However, many replays suggested that the ball was missing the stumps, and by extension, Pattinson was not out. However, umpire Aleem Dar was not budging and poor old James Pattinson was given his marching orders.

The Australian team are currently shy of 200 runs, unfortunately, they lost 8 wickets in the process, with Pattinson being one of them. The only spot of good news is that Steve Smith is still at the crease and going strong. He is currently partnered by Nathan Lyon and the two seem to be holding the fort.

On the England front Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes ran riot and shared 7 wickets between them. Meanwhile, the remaining wicket was an LBW by Ben Stokes. The other two active bowlers, James Anderson and Moeen Ali are yet to get off the mark.

Coming back to the incident, it was strange that Steve Smith and Australia opted not to review it. There was a weather interruption, but fortunately, the skies have cleared and play looks to be resuming. However, the bad news is that more rain is expected, which could come in spurts.

Currently, with 63 overs done and dusted, Australia are on 197 for the loss of 8 wickets. Most of the Australian batsmen crumbled, with the likes of David Warner, Cameron Bancroft, Matthew Wade, skipper Tim Paine, Pattinson and Pat Cummins, were sent packing for single digit scores. Meanwhile, Usman Khawaja could only must 13 and Travis Head had a knock of 35. Peter Siddle also contributed 44 runs before falling prey to Moeen Ali.

There were so many umpiring errors that it seemed as if the umpires were looking at a different match. At least seven decisions were wrong and five were overturned by DRS. Pattinson and David Warner were among the unlucky ones to perish in spite of them not being out. Even Smith himself was on the receiving end of a wrong decision, but managed to have it overturned.