MCC thinks Akash Deep delivery to Joe Root was legal

For all the brouhaha and rumpus over the legality of Akash Deep's delivery that cleaned up Joe Root lock stock and barrel in the just-concluded Edgbaston Test, the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), the final word on cricket laws, seems to believe that there is nothing wrong with the dismissal.

The hallowed body seems to suggest that the law is where the foot lands. It insists that it has always interpreted this to point out the importance of the very first moment any part of the foot makes contact with the ground. So even if some of the foot subsequently lands over the line, if the first thing to land is inside, it is legal.

Akash Deep clean bowled Root off the second delivery of the tenth over with the veteran English batter totally bamboozled by an incoming delivery from the Indian pacer. But moments later footage emerged of the bowler's back foot going wide off the crease leading to some sort of ruckus in a section of the media that it was a backfoot no ball, and therefore illegal.

Even commentators, on air, remarked that it was a no ball and Jonathan Trott, a former England batter, also felt the same when he was commenting during a studio discussion on JioStar. However, Ravi Shastri, on air at that time, was fully convinced that it was a legal delivery. Third umpire Paul Reiffel, who relays information in case of a no ball, did not intervene. Chris Gaffaney and Sharfuddoula Saikat were the on-field umpires.

From what the MCC has seen and the footage available to them, it 'looked like a legal delivery'. "I can't be 100 per cent definitive as we don't have all the footage but from what we've seen it looks legal," said someone who has spoken to the MCC.

Root's wicket was a big breakthrough for India and it reduced England, chasing a mammoth 608, to 50 for three in the third session of Day 4. They ended the day at 72 for three. On the final day, the home team folded for 271, handing India a massive 336-run series-equalling victory in the second of the five-Test series.