Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
TBH I don't think either of them were out, but the real point was consistency in umpiring, but with Doctrove umpiring these things should be expected.
.....................But consistency doesn't mean that you treat dissimilar cases in the same way. If (and it's a big if) the umpires were both unsighted and/or unsure in the case of Hauritz, they should have referred it to the 3rd ump; if (another big if) one considered that he was sure that Strauss' catch was clean, then they shouldn't refer it to the 3rd ump. The cases were in that key sense dissimilar. The fact that both were close calls does not change that.
If you want to criticise Doctrove, there is some amount of legit reason to - you could claim that there's no way he could've been sure Strauss caught that and thus made an error of sight, same as one of failing to give an obvious glove down leg out. But there was not any inconsistency, I don't know how many times this has to be said.