Aleem Dar, the umpire from Pakistan, won a million hearts with his professionalism in the fifth and final Sri Lanka vs England ODI on Tuesday. While Sri Lanka found the momentum and set a mammoth 367-run target, the English batting order went through a terrible downfall. Like the previous four encounters, rain played the spoil-sport again. But umpire Aleem didn’t bother about the shower and remained on the field until he confirmed a decision form the TV umpire.
The incident happened in the 27thh over of the game when the Englishmen were reduced to 132/7. Off-spinner Akila Dhananjaya trapped Liam Plunkett in front of the stumps. Aleem raised his finger and gave the batsman out but Plunkett went for a review just as it started to rain.
While the players rushed towards their respective dressing rooms, Aleem waited on the field for the DRS to do all the checks and confirm whether the batsman was out or not. Since there was no change in the original decision, Dar raised his finger and then left the ground.
Here’s the video:
The match ended with Sri Lanka winning the rain-affected affair by 219 runs via the Duckworth-Lewis method. But Aleem Dar’s professionalism took the social media by storm as Twitterati hailed his gesture and termed him ‘World’s Best Umpire’.