Kohli catch was '100% clean' says Smith; Ponting and Langer agree

Massive controversy erupted on the first day of the fifth Test between India and Australia in Sydney as Virat Kohli, on his very first ball, was ruled ‘not out’ by the third umpire, much to the utter shock of Australia. 

Facing up against Scott Boland, Kohli nicked a rising good length delivery to the second slip. Steve Smith was the fielder at second slip, and with the ball dying on him, Smith dove forward and scooped up the red cherry instead of trying to catch it. And he did it successfully, parrying the ball into the hands of Marnus Labuschagne at gully. 

Smith and Australia were confident that the catch was clean. The entire team was jubilant, thinking they had dismissed dangerous Kohli for a golden duck. However, there was a twist as third umpire Joel Wilson reckoned that Smith had partially grassed the ball while scooping it. And so Wilson ruled Kohli not out, claiming that the ball had been ‘grounded’.

In the immediate aftermath, Smith was unhappy and spent the next couple of minutes shaking his head relentlessly.

At the lunch break, Smith told Isa Guha that he felt the catch was 100% clean.

“100%. No denying it whatsoever. 100%. But the umpires made the decision so we’ll move on,” Smith said, when asked if he felt he had his hands fully underneath the ball.

Meanwhile, on Channel Seven, Ricky Ponting felt the wrong decision had been made. He claimed that Smith could only scoop the ball up because he had full control of it.

"As far as I was concerned, if (the ball) had've come out of (Smith's) hand, he wouldn't have been able to scoop it up,” Ponting said.

"That's what I'm saying, I think his fingers are clearly underneath the ball ... look where his pointer figure is there, it's still underneath the ball,” he added.

Former Australia coach Justin Langer also felt that umpire Wilson made the wrong call.

“From what I have seen there, that makes it more obvious to me that should have been out. Steve Smith had his fingers (underneath the ball), and you could see he was flicking the ball up, it was brilliant what he did,” Langer said on Channel Seven.

"He had his fingers under the ball, he flicked it up deliberately and in my opinion that’s out."

Kohli was on zero when he was adjudged not out. But the drop did not prove costly for Australia as the right-hander went on to add just 17 more runs, before nicking off to debutant Beau Webster at third slip, again off Boland.