Hampshire captain James Vince has backed up under-fire wicketkeeper Lewis McManus, after the latter came in for stringent criticism following his controversial stumping of Leicestershire’s Hassan Azad.

Azad was given out stumped despite McManus removing the bails with his left glove while holding the ball in his right.

Leicestershire head coach Paul Nixon confirmed the matter had been raised with match referee Stuart Cummings. “We have expressed our very strong views on this shocking incident to the match referee and we trust that an extremely strong stance will be taken to keep the integrity of our game,” Nixon told Wisden.com yesterday.

Cummings confirmed that he had spoken to both captains and that a statement would be issued by the ECB in due course. However, Vince suggested McManus didn’t know “exactly what he’d done” at the time, and said that if he and Hampshire had been made aware of the mistake, Azad would have been recalled.

“Lewis is pretty down about how it looks but from his and our point of view we weren’t aware there was an issue until a few overs later,” Vince told the ECB Reporters Network. “We’re talking split seconds. Had we known instantly we would have called [Azad] back and knowing Lewis if he’d known exactly what he’d done he would have said something.”

While the footage shows McManus appealing only to the umpire at the non-striker’s end, with his Hampshire teammates appealing for a stumping, Azad was given out by the square leg umpire.

Can you spot the issue here?#CountyCricket2021 pic.twitter.com/RUxIz4o31z

— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) April 10, 2021

Nixon reiterated his criticism following Leicestershire’s innings defeat to Hampshire.

“We were disappointed with what happened and we’ve spoken to the match referee,” he said. “It’s something we don’t want to see in our game – I’ve never seen it before in all my years of cricket, and we’ll wait to see how the ECB handle it.”

Leicestershire chief executive Sean Jarvis said the club would be writing to the ECB to “express their disappointment with the behaviour of the Hampshire wicketkeeper”.

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