'Get rid of the bails, they’re completely redundant' - Sanjay Manjrekar's plea after Chahal-Warner incident

Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar has urged to get rid of the “completely redundant” bails from modern-day cricket following the incident from the Rajasthan Royals and Delhi Capitals clash in IPL 2022.

The event took place in the second innings of the match on Wednesday evening, when Yuzvendra Chahal almost got rid of David Warner in the ninth over. However, the batter made a massive escape as the ball kissed the leg stump but could not remove the bails. Luck favoured Warner as he got off the scare and went on to score an unbeaten 52 to chase the total.

“I’ve said this before as well, it’s redundant now with the LED stumps to have the bails on. Today it would’ve been a wicket deserving for Chahal who bowled superbly. It was a terrible shot from Warner, and it didn’t get a wicket. Unless it’s adding an aesthetic value, they should just get rid of the bails because they’re completely redundant with LED technology,” said Manjrekar on ESPNcricinfo’s ‘T20 Time Out’ show.

Getting rid of bails may sound scandalous to a lot of people but it defies common sense: Sanjay Manjrekar

Manjrekar also said that bails should be scrapped so that the game can keep up with technology. He said that the emergence of sensors in the stumps has made it easy for the decision-makers to judge if the ball had hit the stumps and give their review, and thus the bails can be removed from cricket.

“Just to be sure the ball has hit the stumps they had these bails on top because if the ball just kissed the stumps you won’t know if there weren’t any bails. And the bails were meant to fall off if the stumps were disturbed. But now that you have a sensor, you know the ball has hit the stumps, so why are the bails there?” he questioned.

Manjrekar feels that this added technology has complicated the game and said that removing the bails would keep things simple. However, he also said that accepting this change would not be easy. “I know it won’t happen because we don’t like to change too many things. We tweak a few other rules, but certain very obvious things aren’t done. Getting rid of bails may sound scandalous to a lot of people but it defies common sense.”