IPL 2019: RR vs KKR: The tale of the stubborn Zing Bail; Chris Lynn can’t believe his luck!

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Fortune was on Chris Lynn’s side as when Dhawal Kulkarni’s ball kissed the leg stump, the zing bail refused to leave the stumps.

Dhawal Kulkarni could not believe his luck when his slower ball caught a leading edge from Sunil Naraine’s bat and Rahul Tripathi dropped a sitter. However, troubles didn’t seem to end for Kulkarni as a dropped skier was not enough, in the same over he managed to get a faint inside edge of Chris Lynn’s bat brushed the leg stump. The twist in the tale over here was that the bail seemed to be too stubborn as it lit up for a while and then comfortably went back on to its position over the stumps. And to add insult to the injury, Kulkarni was smashed for a boundary the very next ball. The cricketing rule suggests that the bail needs to be completely dislodged in order for a batsman to be termed out. However, the number of instances of the bail not falling of in this IPL is bewildering to say the least.

Three times, for three times we have seen this happened. Out of which Rajsthan have been on the receiving end twice and both times the consequences were severe for them. During their match against the Chennai Superkings, they had Dhoni bowled when he was yet to open his account, but because of the bail not being dislodged he could not have been adjudged out. He went on to score a match winning 75 not out. Dhoni got lucky that time, however, he too was on the receiving end when he attempted a run out against KL Rahul, who seemingly was long way out of the ground, but survived because the bail proved to be stubborn again.

The predominant reason for this is that the Zing bails that are used in a lot of tournaments, have LED sensors installed in them which sparks when the bails move. Due to the sensors the weight of the bail is considerably more as compared to the good old traditional set of bails. Zing Bails, being heavier, it needs a substantial impact on them in order to get dislodged. With more and more incidents related to the Zing bails cropping up, it has sparked a debate whether the batsman should be adjudged out if the bail lights up but doesn’t dislodge.

Moreover, during the recent incident involving Chris Lynn, he was already on his way to the pavilion when he realized about the bails not falling. To make things worse for Rajasthan, the ball also raced away to the boundary resulting in four byes. Rahane tried his best in convincing the umpire to call it a dead ball, however within the rules it had to be given as byes. Moments such as these can be extremely crucial and can instantly tilt the momentum of the game.

Post the match, the KKR camp saw the lighter side of it and mentioned that Lynn is all set to head towards the casino, considering the luck he rode that night. A section of the experts feel that it is quite unfair for the bowler as he has already bowled the batsman, and still he is batting. With more and more instances coming up, it will be interesting to see if there is any tweak in terms of the rules when it comes to the Zing bails.