Watch: Ball passes through stumps but the batter remains not out

There have been many instances in cricket where the bails have not dropped even after the ball has made contact with the stumps. However, it is unheard of for the bails to stay intact even after the ball has passed through the stumps. Meanwhile, a bizarre incident occurred during a tennis ball tournament in Surat, where the ball managed to get past the stumps but not enough to drop the bails. The bowler was left scratching his head as the umpire gave the batter not out.

Meanwhile, a cricket enthusiast brought attention to a comparable situation that happened during an international match. During a 1997 Test match between Pakistan and South Africa, Mushtaq Ahmed’s delivery went through the stumps, but the bails did not hit the ground during the first innings of the third Test of the series at Faisalabad. South Africa bowler Pat Symcox was bowled by a flipper by Ahmed, who caused him to miss the ball’s flight and end up beaten all over.

But then, as the ball slid between the off and middle stumps, Symcox was given an unexpected reprieve. After seeing the replays, the commentators noticed the mistake which they hadn’t noticed before.

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“Well that was a quicker one and Symcox making a little bit of room for himself. And I dare say he got a little edge onto his pad otherwise we would have had a very loud appeal,” the commentator was heard saying on-air.

“That looked like a flipper, a real quicker one and it kept low, don’t know what happened there,” said former England batter Geoffrey Boycott before the commentators realised that the ball had gone through the stumps.

“It went through the stumps! I thought he was bowled myself, and then when he didn’t go, Henry said it must have hit the bat onto the pad, but it went straight through the stumps. Can you believe it? I’ve never seen that. I have never seen that before. I’ve seen a lot of cricket around the world, but there’s always something new you can learn,” he added.