County Championship: Leicester complain to ECB about bizarre stumping in match against Hampshire

London: Leicestershire have complained to English cricket authorities after a controversial stumping dismissal in their County Championship defeat against Hampshire. Hampshire won by an innings and 105 runs on Sunday, but the dismissal of Leicestershire’s Hassan Azad was the big talking point from the opening game of the season. Azad was given out stumped off Liam Dawson in a bizarre incident when wicketkeeper Lewis McManus knocked off the bails with his left hand, with the ball in his raised right hand as he appealed for what he thought was a catch. Cricket laws state that the wicket can be fairly put down “by a fielder with his/her hand or arm, providing that the ball is held in the hand or hands so used, or in the hand of the arm so used”. That was not the case in this instance and match referee Stuart Cummings spoke to both captains after the game. Leicestershire were furious with the dismissal and released a post-match statement revealing they have been in contact with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to complain. “For everyone at Leicestershire, the behaviour displayed by Hampshire was extremely disappointing and has no place in the game,” Leicestershire CEO Sean Jarvis said.

🤔🤔 pic.twitter.com/sKSYBqbXU4

— Leicestershire CCC 🦊 (@leicsccc) April 10, 2021

“I have written to the ECB following the completion of this fixture to express the concerns and disappointment of what happened. “I hope we can resolve this matter quickly and move on from the incident.” Leicestershire head coach Paul Nixon added: “We were disappointed with what happened and we’ve spoken to the match referee, 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.” Hampshire captain James Vince defended McManus and insisted the incident was an accident. “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,” he said. “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.”