'That looked horrible when I saw it after the game' - Matthew Wade revisits controversial push on Mark Wood

Australia’s wicketkeeper-batter Matthew Wade acknowledged that he purposefully pushed English bowler Mark Wood with his hand when the latter attempted to grab a catch during the first T20I between Australia and England before the start of the T20 World Cup 2022. The incident took place on October 09 at the Perth Stadium.

Wade erred in timing a pull shot off Wood, and then it appeared like he prevented Wood from completing a catch. Jos Buttler and England chose not to challenge Wade, though. At that time, during the game, Wade did not feel he had done anything wrong but after watching the video replays, the southpaw admitted that he had made a mistake.

“That looked horrible when I saw it after the game. It was one of those things that just happened so fast. I think Kane Richardson said to me when I got off the ground, 'You pushed him, basically'. I was like, 'No, I didn't'. And then I saw the replay and I was like, 'Well, yeah, I did',” Wade was quoted as saying to cricket.com.au's The Unplayable Podcast.

England had set a target of 209 runs in the game, and Australia failed to chase it down and lost the game by eight runs. With the series' last game being postponed and subsequently abandoned owing to rain, the Australians lost the second T20I by the same margin as England went on to win the series 2-0.

“(Wood bowling at) 150 (kph), decent crowd – at first I didn't know if I hit it. It hit me in the head hard, it rung my bell a little bit, (I) went to run down the wicket, Davey (Warner) sent me back, I turned and saw point running in,” he said.

“Then I wasn't sure if I was going to get run out or where the actual ball was. It all just happened literally like that. And then the next minute, I was on the ground, looked up and the ball was like coming down. So yeah, it didn't look great,” Wade added.

If I had a conscious thought of doing it, then I'd be regrettable for doing it: Wade

The seasoned wicketkeeper-batter was straightforward in admitting that he hadn't intentionally tried to stop Wood from catching the ball. Wade even claimed that if England had made an appeal for his removal, he would have left the field.

"If I had a conscious thought of doing it, then I'd be regrettable for doing it. But at the time, there's just so much happening and getting hit in the head with the bloke bowing 150ks at you – things go in fast forward. Now looking back on it, I can see like all these things happened. It was chaos out there. If they had appealed and I saw it on the replay, so be it, I would have walked off the ground, there's not much I could do about it," he concluded.