"Kumar Dharmasena Told Me...": Stuart Broad Reveals Chat With Umpire As Steve Smith Survives Close Call

England bowler Stuart Broad disclosed that umpire Kumar Dharmasena told him that in the arguable call of run out, Australian batter Steven Smith would have been given out if zing bails had been in use. On the day two of the fifth Ashes series, Smith was saved from a run out on the "benefit of the doubt" to batter. At first, it seemed that Smith was short of his ground. But, after seeing replays, umpire Nitin Menon ruled that the bail was not completely dislodged from both grooves of Jonny Bairstow until Smith was in his crease.

Bairstow had knock off a bail with his arm and when the ball reached on his grooves, Smith was in the crease.

"I honestly don't know the rules, I think there was enough grey area to give that not out. It looked like benefit of the doubt sort of stuff, first angle I saw I thought out, and then the side angle it looked like the bails probably dislodged," Broad said as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.

"Kumar said to me if it was zing bails it would been given out, I don't really understand the reasoning why," he further added.

Under the Laws, the bail has to be completely removed. Law 29.1 states: "The wicket is broken when at least one bail is completely removed from the top of the stumps, or one or more stumps is removed from the ground."

Tom Smith's Cricket Umpiring and Scoring, MCC's Official Interpretation of the Laws of Cricket, adds: "For the purposes of dismissal - a bail has been removed at the moment that both ends of it leave their grooves."

Smith has also started walking back to the pavillion as he had also thought that he was outside the crease.

"I saw the initial replay and saw the bail come up, and when I looked at it the second time looked like Jonny might have knocked the bail before the ball