Former Australia skipper Ricky Ponting was extremely critical of the umpiring during the ongoing first Test match against India and he was of the opinion that umpires don’t look at the front line anymore.

Ishant Sharma dismissed Aaron Finch during Australia’s innings and although he overstepped, umpire Kumar Dharmasena gave it out. Later, the review showed that Ishant had overstepped and as a result, Finch survived.

“I’ve said this for a lot of years; I honestly don’t think the umpires look at the front line anymore,” Ponting told cricket.com.au.

“Some of the ones we’ve seen today ... he was 4-6 inches over the line.

“I don’t think the umpires are looking and I certainly don’t think they were looking at those ones because they were blatantly obvious ones.

“And as we know now, they’ll only ever look at them if a wicket falls, which as far as I’m concerned is not right,” he added.

Ravichandran Ashwin and paceman Mohammed Shami combined to tear through Australia’s top order and bring India within six wickets of victory on day four of the series-opening test on Sunday.

Shaun Marsh (31 not out) and Travis Head (11 not out) were left clinging to their wickets after nudging Australia to 104 for four at stumps, after a nerve-jangling final hour at Adelaide Oval.

Australia were 219 runs short of their victory target of 323 and will need to defy history to chase down the total.

(With agency inputs)

First Published: Dec 09, 2018 16:48 IST