The flap kicked up over M.S. Dhoni’s dismissal at the Wankhede Stadium was unnecessary. The ground screen gave Dhoni marching orders after he was run-out in India’s first innings. It was obviously a glitch, if an avoidable one, as the batsman decided to walk even before the Third Umpire gave his decision. But then in cricket, great catches and spectacular run-outs often share space with tardy umpiring decisions. Unfortunately, this may become more pronounced as technology gradually replaces the ‘human element’. It’s another matter that a man sitting 150 yards away in front of a screen is supposed to be a better judge than a man standing 22 yards away.
Cricket is no stranger to soft dismissals of batsmen and India figures in some of the most remarkable of such cases. As happened in the third Test against England in 2001, when Michael Vaughan attempted a sweep shot and the ball ballooned off his pads: Vaughan trapped it with his glove and tossed it to a fielder. Earlier that same year in Chennai, Steve Waugh was given out ‘handling the ball’ when he gloved a Harbhajan Singh delivery away from his stumps. And Inzamam-ul Haq fended off a throw to avoid being run-out in the recent series against India.
But Ken Barrington’s dismissal in the 1964 Test at Old Trafford takes the cake. When a sharp off-cutter nicked his bails, he nonchalantly put them back on the stumps and remarked on the ‘windy day’. Not amused, the umpire famously told Barrington to mind the wind didn’t blow his “cap off on the way back to the pavilion”.