Melbourne: Everyone is aware of Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s penchant for collecting stumps as souvenirs after every India win but just like last year’s World Twenty20 in Bangladesh, he won’t be able to collect any during the ongoing ODI World Cup irrespective of his team’s victories.
The World Cup in Australia and New Zealand again has the LED stumps, which are touch-sensitive and blink whenever the bails get whipped off.
Just after India completed their win against arch-rivals Pakistan on Sunday at the Adelaide Oval, Dhoni took one of the bails but then Ian Gould, who was the square leg umpire, had a friendly chat with him after which one saw the bail remaining where it is.
The specific reason being that these set of ‘LED stumps’ cost USD 40,000 (Rs 24 lakh) and the pair of bails costs as much as an iPhone 5 (Rs 50,000 approx). So Dhoni won’t be able to keep any of these bails or stumps unless there is an official permission from the ICC in this regard.
The ‘LED stumps’ were first used during the 2013 edition of ‘Big Bash’ after which they were used on an experimental basis at the World T20 in Bangladesh, where the response was pretty positive. “Well, this is a very costly system. The entire set-up during a match costs USD 40,000 (Rs 25 Lakh approx), so I don’t allow the players to uproot it during any celebrations,” EcKermann, the inventor of ‘LED stumps’, had then told PTI during an interaction in Mirpur.
That Eckermann and ICC are strict about it can be gauged from the fact that all the patented stumps and bails are kept intact. It had taken almost three years of research from Eckermann to give his dream a shape.
Eckermann, along with David Leigitwood as a commercial partner, formed Zing International and sold his idea to Cricket Australia.
The touch sensitive stumps need to be handled with care and Eckermann had then said that Lasith Malinga’s yorkers is something that “scares him” as they can break the stump into two pieces.
