Controversy erupted during the second India-West Indies ODI at Guwahati when Naman Dhir held onto a low catch to dismiss opener Keacy Carty in the first innings.

India won the toss and opted to bowl first as they looked to seal the series after winning the opening game in Trivandrum on Sunday. West Indies got off to a flying start, reaching 37 in just 23 balls, before Prasidh Krishna struck. Keacy Carty drove the good-length delivery early, and it travelled towards cover point. Dhir moved to his left as the ball dipped in front of him before diving forward full stretch and getting both hands underneath it to complete the catch.

The on-field umpires referred the decision to the third umpire, who reviewed the replays before ruling Carty out. However, viewers, along with Raunak Kapoor on commentary, questioned whether, despite Dhir's fingers being underneath the ball, they were actually around it.

What made the decision even harder for viewers to gauge was a digital advertisement for ChatGPT that appeared on the screen just as the TV umpire was reviewing the catch. The image appeared during the replays and was absent in the first frame when Dhir actually completed the catch. The whitish-grey banner also camouflaged the exact position of the white ball as Dhir took the catch.

Subsequent replays showed another digitally altered image in which the player's hands were defined by a white outline, while the ball itself appeared noticeably AI-like. It made it difficult for the TV viewers to determine exactly what was happening.

While watching the replays, TV umpire Sam Nogajski was also heard saying, “I think it’s [the fingers] are under the ball there”, raising further questions about whether the TV umpire was being shown the same altered images (with a less-than-ideal white background) than what the viewers were seeing.

However, the technical team at JioStar, the official broadcasters of the series, confirmed to Wisden.com that the white background was not what the umpires were seeing: “On TV, the umpires don’t get the background images, while on TV you see the sponsors".

"ChatGPT nahi dikhega [the umpire will not see ChatGPT]. The umpires see the visuals from the ground camera, with the replays coming from the HawkEye/EVS machines,” a former umpire also confirmed.

Asked whether the digitally altered image of Dhir's hands was visible to the umpires as well and whether they were making decisions based on them, it was explained that the effect was the result of chroma keying, a “green screen” phenomenon that is only shown on live TV. Chroma keying is a video-editing and special-effects technique in which a solid-coloured background is removed from a subject and replaced with a different image or video.

Therefore, while viewers were presented with a strange, digitally altered image during the review, the umpires were seeing the unsponsored, raw footage from the relevant camera feeds, which they used to reach their decision.

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