Stump knocked back, bails don't dislodge: Mind-boggling pic from Australian Grade cricket sparks Laws of Cricket debate

It happened in a local ACT Premier Cricket Third Grade competition in Australia where the middle stump was knocked back by the bowler, but the bails stayed on.

Often we come across bizarre instances in sports across the globe, world cricket witnessed one of the most freakish incident on Sunday which instantly went viral and sparked Laws of Cricket debate on social media. It happened in a local ACT Premier Cricket Third Grade competition in Australia where the middle stump was knocked back by the bowler, but the bails stayed on.

Have you ever seen that before?

The mind-boggling incident was from a game between Ginninderra Cricket Club and West District Cricket Club. Cricket ACT's social media page later shared the image with the caption: “Things you don't see every day…Explain this one from a Ginninderra-Wests game for us, cricket fans – how was this possible? Physics? Chewing Gum? Swollen timber in all the rain?"

According to The Canberra Times report, Ginninderra bowler Andy Reynolds looked to clean bowl Tigers opener Matthew Bosustow and had already begun celebrating after watching the ball knock over the middle stump. Bosustow had started walk off towards the dug out as well before realising that the bails were still in place, stitting still on off and leg stumps which remained upright.

There seemed a bit of a chaos, but after a long chat between the two on-field umpires, Bosustow was declared not out due to the laws of the game. According to the Law 29 of the Marylebone Cricket Club — custodian of the Laws of Cricket: “The wicket is broken when at least one bail is completely removed from the top of the stumps, or one or more stumps is removed from the ground.”

In this instance, neither was the bail dislodged, not was the middle stump uprooted from the ground. Had the latter happened despite the bails staying on, the batter would have been declared out.

Wests captain Sam Wightman later admitted that he was shocked at the sight of what had unravelled in that delivery and later disappointed at the batter surviving that.

“I’ve never seen that happen before,” Wightman said. “No one has seen it happen. We all found it pretty funny afterwards. At the time we were happy to take the wicket, then we weren’t so happy the batsman had to come back. We got him not long after, which made me happier.”

Social-media page ‘ThatsSoVillage’ also shared the viral image of that incident as fans labelled Reynolds as the most unluckiest bowler. But he took it to the chin.

“He was just bewildered,” Wightman added. “He’d never seen it before, he didn’t know how to react. Bemused is the word he used in the change rooms.”