Stump uprooted, but bails intact
It isn't often your middle stump is uprooted but you still have umpires seriously considering whether or not it's out.
Yet that is exactly the strange situation in which Moonee Valley batsman Jatinder Singh found himself last weekend.
The gravity-defying incident occurred in a winter competition in north-west Melbourne on Saturday when Singh was clean-bowled during a match against Strathmore Heights.
But amazingly, the two bails remained serenely perched in their grooves atop the other undisturbed stumps, seemingly wedged together above where the unearthed middle peg recently stood.
After some deliberation, Singh was correctly given out, though the umpires could have been forgiven had they come to the opposite conclusion.
Law 28 of the Marylebone Cricket Club's Laws of Cricket dictates, "the disturbance of a bail, whether temporary or not, shall not constitute its complete removal from the top of the stumps", meaning just because the bails had moved, it doesn't necessarily mean it's out.
The MCC-produced Tom Smith's Cricket Umpiring and Scoring goes into more detail; if both bails remain "on top" of the stumps, or if any part of a displaced bail is above unbroken stumps, the stumps are not deemed to be 'down'.
In this case, both bails were on top of stumps, weren't "displaced" and were both technically above "unbroken stumps", weren't they?
Keen cricket followers would of course know the first part of Law 28 also states that a wicket is considered down if a stump is "struck out of the ground".
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