The way the Pakistani opener Imam ul Haq was stumped by the Sri Lankan wicketkeeper Niroshan Dickwella on the 4th day of the Galle test match today, has become a subject of much debate among the cricket pundits and the fans.
Generally, a batsman is stumped by the wicketkeeper when he wanders down the pitch or lunges forward and gets his back foot outside the crease in the process of lunging. But in the case of Imam ul Haq today, he was actually trying to play an off-spinning delivery, which was going away from him, off the back foot.
Imam was facing the Sri Lankan off-spinner Ramesh Mendis and he was trying to play him from inside the crease off the surface. As the ball spun past Imam’s bat, the left-hander was well inside his crease. What happened after that was that Niroshan Dickwella didn’t take the bails off immediately.
Dickwella kept the ball in his gloves and waited for Imam to lift his back foot inside the crease. As Imam lifted his back foot for a split second in order to get upright again, Dickwella took the bails off.
Imam ul Haq was not in the occupation of his crease while the ball was still in play
A lot of purists believe since Imam had completed his shot and had no intention of taking any run at all, it was an unfair dismissal. But, going strictly by the rulebook, till the time the ball was in Dickwella’s gloves, it was not dead and was still in play.
The rulebook says till the ball is in play, the batsman has to be in the occupation of his crease in order to not get stumped. Since Imam ul Haq was not occupying his crease for that split second where he lifted his back foot, the third umpire Rod Tucker considered it a legitimate stumping and ruled Imam out.
