Ireland captain suggests Foakes' stumping of Balbirnie should have been called dead ball

Brilliant piece of wicketkeeping or pushing the Laws of the game? Ben Foakes' stumping of Andy Balbirnie in Friday's ODI between Ireland and England left many praising his smart glovework, but Ireland's captain, William Porterfield, was less impressed and afterwards suggested the ball was "pretty much dead".

The issue of a wicketkeeper waiting behind the stumps for the merest hint of a batsman lifting his foot is not quite as contentious as running out a batsman backing up - and Porterfield declined to make a comparison with Mankad dismissals - but similar questions were asked in some quarters about the legitimacy of such stumpings by stealth.

Porterfield was more concerned about the tactic delaying play, if wicketkeepers regularly sought to wait for a batsman to accidentally leave his ground, and suggested games could end up lasting "15 hours" .

"You can say it was great wicketkeeping or you can say it's a bit of a grey area of 'when is the ball dead?'" Porterfield said. "The ball was pretty much dead. The batsman wasn't going anywhere or over-balanced. The keeper has waited for three or four seconds. If we do that all day, it's going be a pretty long game. How long do you wait? We'll be playing 15-hour games if you wait that long."

Seeing lots of admiration for Foakes' keeping after that stumping. Not the first time too.

And it's almost exactly what Stewart did to Lara 22 years ago. Just hope the spirit of mother cricket's watching all of it. pic.twitter.com/fOhqZyPSrc

— Srinath (@srinathsripath) May 3, 2019

On the subject of whether it was similar to Mankading a batsman at the non-striker's end - recently (and controversially) employed by R Ashwin when running out Jos Buttler in the IPL - Porterfield suggested this was a different matter.

"He [Balbirnie] was probably more unhappy that he did lift his foot a little bit as he wasn't going anywhere or trying to do anything," he said. "The ball is pretty much dead like. On another day, that ball is probably [thrown by Foakes] into the covers."

Foakes himself saw the dismissal as simply going about his normal business. "When it's a sweep you think they might fall over and I just saw he lifted his foot and nicked [the bails] off," he said.