Simon Taufel reveals what Munaf Patel said to Owais Shah during 2006 Mumbai Test

Simon Taufel reveals what Munaf Patel said to Owais Shah during 2006 Mumbai Test

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Australian umpire Simon Taufel revealed, during a summit in Nagpur, what fast bowler Munaf Patel had spat out at England’s Owais Shah during the 2006 Wankhede Test. The 48-year-old official also stated that while technology has helped cricket massively, it wouldn’t replace humans anytime soon.

It was during the summer of 2006 when England were touring India and were trailing 1-0 in the Test series, before the third Test match at Wankhede. The visitors needed to get back in the series and they did exactly that at the back of some marvellous batting by Andrew Strauss and Owais Shah. While the Three Lions had won the match by 212 runs, it was the heated exchange between Munaf Patel and Owais Shah that people remember it for.

Taufel was officiating the match, as per TOI reports, and decided to speak at length about it during his speech at the Annual Entrepreneurship Summit, Consortium'19 in Nagpur, where he was the keynote speaker. He pointed towards the photograph of that particular incident and asked "What did Munaf say?" 

The crowd was very much interested to know and Taufel revealed it. In his Australian accent, the former umpire said, “Munaf said 'Saala ch***a' to Shah,” said Taufel reported TOI, as the crowd broke into laughter.

"One of the things I learned as a cricket umpire was I got to know good words in local language. Now, I know bad words in seven different languages. It helped me a lot in dealing with on-field incidents," added Taufel.

The youngest person to receive the ICC's Bronze Bails Award for umpiring 100 ODIs, Taufel also referred to Aaron Finch’s dismissal in the third ODI between Australia and India in Ranchi. The Aussie skipper had gone deep behind his crease and had missed a quickish delivery by Kuldeep Yadav as the ball hit his leg. While the ball-tracking showed that it was crashing into middle and leg stump, many weren’t convinced.

Sometime technology is not perfect either. Technology has changed the game forever. Technology should be simple. It should support us (what we do) and our purpose. But, it should not replace humans," he added.

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