Did Stokes get away with one? UltraEdge ‘grumblings’ reprieve Ben Stokes before registering first World Cup hundred
Ben Stokes was given not out to an lbw decision shortly after reaching his half-century against the Netherlands in Pune today (November 8), with the third umpire judging that he had likely hit the ball. It was not, however, a clear-cut decision.
England opted to bat first against the Netherlands in a bid to break their five-match losing streak. But another middle order collapse left them reeling at 192-6, once again relying on Stokes to dig them out of a hole. Having reached his half-century off 58 balls with a six off Bas de Leede, Stokes looked ominous.
Two overs later, he carted Aryan Dutt for consecutive boundaries – a cut for four before a six over deep mid wicket – to take England past 250. However, attempting to reverse sweep Dutt later in the over, Stokes got himself in a tangle. As he collapsed to the ground, the ball hit him on the knee roll and looked pretty adjacent to the wicket. However, Rod Tucker was unmoved and the Netherlands sent the decision upstairs for review.
TV Umpire, Marais Erasmus, first checked whether Stokes had edged the delivery, as the ball had passed close to his gloves. As the footage was rock and rolled through the frames, there were several murmurs on the technology, which Erasmus labelled as “grumblings”.
Ben Stokes was given not out to this lbw review
He concluded that the ball must have scratched Stokes’ gloves on the way through, and told Tucker to stay with his original decision. There was some doubt over the decision among the commentators, given that edges are normally judged as clear spikes on the technology. There were no spikes as such when the ball passed Stokes’ gloves, but some disturbance on the technology.
There was also doubt over whether the disturbance was caused by Stokes’ gloves brushing against his pads, which they looked close to be doing.
Stokes went on to score his first century in a World Cup, finishing on 108 off 84 balls when he was dismissed by Logan van Beek. In the same over from Dutt, he scored 23 runs including two sixes after the incident took place. England went on to win the game by 160 runs.
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