Australian batsman Matthew Wade received a life during the third T20 International against India on Tuesday after Virat Kohli’s attempt to review an LBW appeal was deemed “null and void” by the third umpire.

After winning the series on Sunday, India lost the third match as Australia avoided a clean sweep.

The incident happened in the 11th over of the Australian innings when a delivery from left-arm seamer T Natarajan struck Wade on the front pad. The on-field umpire said not-out and that’s when the confusion ensued.

Kohli, who was fielding at long-on, first took the advice of wicketkeeper KL Rahul while deciding to go for DRS. The India captain then turned to go back to his position but quickly decided to take the review after all. It seemed he saw the replay of the delivery and made his decision.

Rahul then gestured at the on-field umpire that India had opted for the review which didn’t go down well with Wade. “They referred it off the big screen,” he was heard telling the square-leg umpire.

However, just as the replays of the delivery started to show for DRS, third umpire Paul Wilson deemed the appeal “null and void” because it has been taken after the replay was shown on the big screen.

“We can’t go through this review anymore,” Wilson was heard saying. “There are replays on the big screen. “This is a null and void review.”

Kohli and the rest of the Indian players were understandably displeased with the turn of events. The replay showed that Wade would have indeed been out as the ball had struck in line and was going on to hit the stumps.

A captain is supposed to take DRS within 15 seconds but Kohli, according to cricket.com.au, had taken 17 seconds before making his decision.

Wade, who is the vice-captain of the Australian team, made a key contribution of 80 runs off 53 balls. Down 0-2 in the three-match series, Australia batted first at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Tuesday and posted a total of 186/5 in their 20 overs. The hosts won the match by 12 runs.

Here’s the full video of the incident:

Play

UPDATE: Speaking about the incident after the match, Kohli said: “That LBW was a strange one, we were still discussing that if ball was going down leg side within the 15-second timeframe, they showed the replay on screen and decided to go for the review but Rod [Tucker] said nothing can be done.”

Kohli added that the mistake was from the television crew.

“[We felt] that these mistakes cannot be done at the highest level. In a very important game, this could be very costly. It was a little bit of a miss from the TV guys upstairs and I’m sure that it’s probably not going to be repeated. No one wants to be in a situation where you lose out on a very important moment in the game,” Kohli said.

Watch his comments from the 9-minute mark here:

Twitter, though, was divided over the incident with many not sure if the right decision was taken.

Here are some reactions: