A controversy erupted on Day 1 of the highly-anticipated Boxing Day Test between India and Australia at Melbourne Cricket Ground as Australia’s skipper Tim Paine survived a controversial run-out decision. Batting first, Australia witnessed a collapse of their batting line-up as the Indian bowling unit went all guns blazing against them.

India’s pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah and spin legend Ravichandran Ashwin have early hiccups to the opposition as Bumrah scalped the wickets of Joe Burns and Travis Head who scored a duck and 38 runs respectively. Ashwin was also at his usual best as he rattled the oppositions by picking two priced wickets including Matthew Wade and ICC’s number one ranked Test batsman, Steve Smith.

This was followed by Mohammed Siraj naming Marnus Labuschagne as his maiden international wicket in the purest format of the game. As a result, Australia was reeling at a score of 141 for 5 at the end of the 54th over with skipper Tim Paine and all-rounder Cameron Green being the last-competent batting pair for the hosts.

Tim Paine survives a close run-out call

On the last ball of the 55th over, India got a chance to dismiss the in-form batsman Paine back to the pavilion and shift the momentum completely towards their side, however, Tim survived the run-out but it resulted in a controversy as many argued that the third umpire Paul Wilson made a mistake in his judgement.

Green played the delivery off Ashwin towards mid-off and ran to take a single. Paine, who was in dual mind, finally decided to trust his batting partner and started running from his side. However, Umesh Yadav, who was fielding at mid-off quickly collected the ball and threw it to the wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant who in turn uprooted the stumps. It was a close call and thus the on-field umpires referred the decision to the third umpire.

Paul Wilson wasn’t able to reach any conclusive decision and thus decided to give the benefit of doubt to the batsman and Paine got away with this almost run-out. However, this left the Indian fans and many cricket analysts amused as from a viral picture it can be clearly seen that Tim Paine failed to cross the line on time.

Meanwhile, not only the fans but also the Indian players were not expecting the decision to go in the favour of Australia as one player was caught in the stump mic saying, “Something fishy. How did he not give that as out”.