International Cricket

DRS Howler Pak-BD 1st ODI Mirpur — Rizwan Not-Out Decision Decoded Frame by Frame

Karthik Menon 15 May 2026 Updated 15 May 2026 ~6 min read ~1,033 words

Mirpur DRS Rizwan stumping decision frame by frame

Share this article

In the 18th over of Pakistan's innings at Mirpur, Mohammad Rizwan stepped down the wicket to a Mehidy Hasan delivery, missed the line, and was stumped by Litton Das with the bat clearly in the air. The on-field call was out. The DRS review went to the third umpire. Two minutes later the not-out call came back. The Bangladesh dressing room was loud about it; the Pakistan dressing room said nothing; the BBC television commentary called it a howler in three different languages. Frame by frame, here is what the angles actually show, what the rule says, and why the call was wrong.

The Sequence — Frame By Frame

Frame 1: Rizwan's bat is at the top of its backswing, his front foot is six inches outside the popping crease, the ball has passed the bat. Frame 2: the ball is in Litton's gloves, Litton is in the act of moving forward, Rizwan's bat is starting to come down. Frame 3: Litton's gloves strike the stumps, the bails are dislodged, the bat is still in the air. Frame 4: the bat lands inside the crease.

The frame that decides the call is Frame 3. The bails are visibly off; the bat is visibly in the air; the foot is visibly behind the line. The footage shows the bail dislodgement and the bat-in-air at the same instant. The decision should have been out.

The Third Umpire's Reasoning

The third umpire's communication with the on-field umpire, broadcast on the stump mic feed, made reference to the bat being on the line in the side-on angle. The side-on angle does not give a definitive call on the bail-dislodgement instant because of the camera position. The third umpire then asked for the front-on angle, which showed the bat clearly in the air. The third umpire's second comment was that the bat had touched the ground before the bail came off.

The footage available to the third umpire was the same footage the broadcast used. The broadcast frames show the bat in the air at the bail-dislodgement instant. The third umpire's call was contrary to the footage.

The Rule — What MCC Law 39 Says

MCC Law 39, the stumping law, says a batter is stumped if the wicket is fairly broken by the wicket-keeper without the intervention of another fielder, while the batter is out of his crease and not attempting a run. The relevant question for the Rizwan call is whether the bat had grounded inside the crease at the moment the wicket was broken. The footage shows the bat was not grounded. The decision should have been out.

The MCC's Law 39 frame-by-frame guidance, published in 2019, is explicit. The wicket is broken at the moment the bails leave the stumps, not at the moment the wicket-keeper's gloves first touch the stumps. The bail-off frame is the reference frame. The frame in question shows the bat in the air.

The Bangladesh Captain's Reaction

Najmul Hossain Shanto's on-field reaction was visible. He shook his head, walked across to the umpire, and asked for the third umpire's confirmation in writing. The umpire's response was that the third umpire's call was final. Shanto did not push the matter beyond the over, but the post-match press conference was where the protest was registered. Shanto called the decision "a clear mistake" and asked the ICC to review the third-umpire panel for the series.

The ICC Response

The ICC's match referee for the series, Andrew Pycroft, did not act on the on-field protest. The post-match review by the ICC umpiring department flagged the call as an incorrect decision. The third umpire was removed from the panel for the second ODI. The umpiring department's internal communication, which has not been formally released, said the call was a frame-misreading and not a procedural error.

The Precedent

There have been three previous high-profile DRS stumping calls in the last 24 months that have been overturned on review or flagged in post-match audits. Two of the three were in subcontinent ODIs; the third was an Australia-South Africa T20I. The pattern is that the side-on angle is unreliable for stumping calls and the third umpire has to use the front-on angle. The pattern is now established enough that the ICC umpiring training has been updated to require the front-on angle as the reference frame.

The Match Impact

Rizwan was on 41 when the call was made. He went on to score 78, and his partnership with Salman Agha added 102 for the third wicket. The match was won by Pakistan by 38 runs. The stumping call did not decide the match's result. The Bangladesh dressing room's contention is that the result would have been closer; the data on Rizwan's strike-rate trajectory at the time of the not-out call supports a 60-70 run swing if he had been dismissed.

What to Watch Next

The second ODI's third-umpire assignment — whether the ICC's panel revision changes the personnel for the remainder of the series, and whether the front-on angle becomes the default reference for the rest of the bilateral.