he confusion over Steve Smith’s run-out reprieve unfold into the England dressing room on day two of the Fifth Ashes Test, with Stuart Broad admitting: “I don’t know the rules!”

Australia were bowled out for 295 on the second evening at the Oval, the vacationers securing a slender first-innings lead of 12 after successful the toss and selecting to bowl on the opening morning.

However, it would effectively have been England within the ascendancy had TV umpire Nitin Menon not dominated in Smith’s favour when the batter got here mightily near being run out by substitute fielder George Ealham in an incident that evokes recollections of Gary Pratt’s well-known dismissal of Ricky Ponting throughout the 2005 collection.

Diving full size, one replay appeared to indicate Smith in need of his floor as wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow broke the stumps, whereas different angles recommended the bails remained of their groove as Smith’s bat crossed into his crease. There was additionally a query over whether or not Bairstow had already dislodged the bails previous to gathering the throw.

“I honestly don’t know the rules,” Broad mentioned. “I think there is enough grey area to give that not out.

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“What are the rules? Was it the right decision? It looked like benefit of the doubt [to the batter] sort of stuff. The first angle I saw I thought ‘out’. Then the side angle it looked like the bails probably dislodged.

“Kumar [Dharmasena, the on-field umpire] said to me that if it was zing bails it would have been given out but I don’t really understand the reasoning why.”

Smith’s departure at that stage would have left his aspect 195 for eight however the batter went on from 44 to prime rating with 71, edging Australia forward together with useful lower-order contributions from Todd Murphy and Pat Cummins.

Smith, like Broad, was left barely bemused by the incident, having walked midway off the sector after viewing the primary replay on the large display screen, earlier than returning because the third umpire continued his deliberation.

“I saw the initial replay and the bail came up and then when I looked the second time, it looked like Jonny might have knocked bail before ball came in,” he defined. “It looked pretty close. If the ball had hit at the initial stage I thought I was well out of my ground, but on the next angle it looked pretty close and the umpire gave me not out.”

It was an odd day within the highlight for the bails, with Broad on the centre of a weird sequence of occasions halfway by the morning session.

England’s seamers had bowled with out luck for the very best a part of 90 minutes as Marnus Labuschagne and Usman Khawaja dug in, till Broad made the unusual transfer of swapping the bails over as the previous ready to take his guard.

From the very subsequent supply, Labuschagne was dismissed, edging Mark Wood to slide, the place Joe Root took a sensational one-handed catch.

“I’ve heard – and I might have made this up - that it’s like an Aussie change of luck thing,” Broad defined. “I could have just made that up. But we had a few played and misses in the morning session, we needed to make a breakthrough and I thought I’d have a little change of the bails.

“Marnus is someone who would notice everything so he took notice of it. It just worked out pretty magically that he nicked off next ball and Rooty took a great catch.”