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Let the zing light up, why wait for it to be dislodged

That was the fifth time in 13 games since the ICC World Cup started that bails did not come off the grooves despite the ball hitting the stumps

After the military insignia on MS Dhoni's wicketkeeping gloves created a furore, zing bails have now gone viral on social media with fans fuming and wondering about the immovability of the horizontal led bars placed on the stumps.
These led bails have the potential to become the biggest spoilsport of this World Cup.
On Sunday when India's pace sensation Jasprit Bumrah bowled a fast delivery to David Warner, the southpaw didn't middle the shot on his chip-embedded bat and it hit his boots before rolling on to his leg stump. The bails lit up but didn't come off the grooves, giving the Aussie a chance to add 55 more runs to his total with that reprieve.
That was the fifth time in 13 games since the ICC World Cup started that bails did not come off the grooves despite the ball hitting the stumps.
The Law 29.1.2 states: "The disturbance of a bail, whether temporary or not, shall not constitute its complete removal from the top of the stumps."
In all five incidents, the bails didn't come off the grooves completely as required under the law.
On all five occasions, the batsmen survived despite bowlers breaching their defence to hit the stumps.
The obvious logic could be that the bails are too heavy.
The ICC, however, has insisted that the zing bails, conceived by Australian mechanical industrial designer, Bronte EcKermann, were lighter than the heavy bails used in the extreme windy conditions.
The zing bails are the innovation for the umpires to decide if the ball had hit the stumps or not because sometimes it was difficult for them to determine if the traditional wooden bails had been 'dislodged completely'.
Now two captains of World Cup-winning teams have raised questions about the zing bails as they don't come off even after a fast bowler hits the stumps with fast deliveries.
Australian skipper Aaron Finch and Indian captain Virat Kohli have condemned the 'unfair bails'.
It is hard to digest ICC argument that the bails are as light as the wooden bails because when Jofra Archer hit a bail on the off side while bowling to Bangladesh's Soumya Sarkar and the ball ricocheted off the bail over wicketkeeper's head and flew over the ropes.
It was more like a miscued shot off a heavy thick blade going for a six.
I dread to think of another incident of bails not budging even after the stumps are hit by a bowler in the final.
I personally reckon that there's still time to tweak the law and allow umpires to rule 'out' as soon as the lights go up because that would mean the ball has hit the stumps.
Bowled means the bowler has hit the stumps. The whole idea of zing bails was to let umpires see that a bowler has hit the stumps.
Let the zing light up, why wait for it to be dislodged.
sunilvaidya@khaleejtimes.com