simon taufel

“I could never have imagined it was a shoelace.”

Rahul Dravid is flabbergasted to learn that the sound he heard came not from his bat but from an errant shoelace. Dravid walked on being adjudged out by umpire Simon Taufel in the second innings of the third Test at Edgbaston.

In his own words: “"My first instinct was that I had not hit it. But there was a loud noise, and I couldn’t figure out where it had come from. I knew I hadn’t hit the ground, or my pad, or my shoe, so it confused me as to where the noise had come from. But I didn’t think I had touched it. So I asked my partner and he said there was a big noise. So I had Simon Taufel, one of the best umpires in the world, ruling me out, my partner saying it was out and I myself had heard the noise. I thought maybe it was just one of those instances where I hadn’t felt the edge.”

What he really meant:

“A shoelace? A shoelace?? A shooooooelaaace?”

What he definitely didn’t:

“Now, if I had listened to my momma and fastened untied, untidy laces, this would have never occurred.”