Trust an India-England clash to throw up a dash of controversy.

On a good batting surface in Rajkot on the first day of the first Test, England's Joe Root was at his serene best. He put on a pacey 179-run partnership with Moeen Ali to rescue his team from 102/3 and nullified India's spinners with brilliant strokeplay, on his way to his tenth hundred and his first in Asia.

But when all the talk should have been about his innings, it was his dismissal which raised eyebrows.

In the fifth ball of the 81st over, Joe Root played an immaculate straight drive, perfect in every sense, except he hit it straight into Umesh Yadav's hands.

Except, as the video shows, Yadav did not collect the ball cleanly. He showed great reflexes to get down on his follow-through and get his palms behind the ball. But, whether by fault or plain reflex, Yadav threw the ball above him while coming up. The ball soared above his head and Yadav turned behind as it dropped to the ground.

The bowler and India, though, believed they had their man. The umpires, Sri Lanka's Kumar Dharmasena and New Zealand's Chris Gaffaney thought the same. They referred the decision to third umpire Rod Tucker, though while giving a soft signal as "out". For his part, the television umpire analysed the footage, believed Yadav was in control of the catch ("He was smiling as he threw the ball up") and decided to give Root out.

Play

But was it out? It was one of those things that fall squarely under the purview of the onfield umpires. Law 32 of the official Laws of Cricket states that a fielder has to be in "complete control" over both the ball and his own body. Now whether Umesh Yadav was in complete control of the ball was something the umpires had to decide and they decided in favour of the bowler.

However, the trend of fielders dropping catches by celebrating too early is a common one in cricket. Yadav's catch in particular brought back memories of Herschelle Gibbs dropping Steve Waugh at the 1999 World Cup. Gibbs caught Waugh out but was deemed to have not been in control of the ball when flicking the ball over in celebration. Waugh is alleged to have told Gibbs that "he had dropped the World Cup".

Play

A similar, if not as infamous, incident happened in an England Test against West Indies: Brian Lara pouched a catch at slip off Andrew Flintoff and then in the process of trying to celebrate, dropped it. Even in that instance, the catch was not given.

Play

Twitter, who had already had a chaotic last few hours, also voiced their displeasure: