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Today, I watched the gripping finale to the second Ashes Test at Lords where Australia beat England to take a 2-0 series lead in the series. While Australia won the game, Ben Stokes won the hearts of everyone watching the final day’s play with an epic innings of 155 in a losing cause. Stokes has a record second to none of playing amazing match winning knocks across all formats of the game, and for a period before his dismissal, it seemed like there would be another chapter added to his legend. But it was not to be, as the mountain was just too tall to climb after the last of the recognized batters Jonny Bairstow was declared out in bizarre circumstances.
Technically speaking, Australia was within their rights to appeal because the laws of cricket are clear on this subject. The umpire only needed to check that the stumps were broken with Bairstow out of his crease, which was clearly the case. However, this re-ignited the debate about whether this dismissal conformed to the spirit of cricket or not with fans at Lord’s left in no doubt on the issue. There were loud boos directed at Carey and the Australian captain Cummins and there were even reports of some scuffles at the haloed long room at Lord’s when the Australian team went in for lunch. Clearly, English fans believed that what happened was not in the spirit of the game and it was surprising to hear all the television commentary at the game come out in support of Australia by saying that what they did was within the laws of the fame when that was never the core issue.
The game of cricket has a long history of teams playing within the laws of the game to win, but the tactics that they employed leading to accusations of violating the spirit of cricket and in some cases, the figures involved have been demonized in the history of the game. Bodyline was not illegal when it was implemented by Douglas Jardine as a tactic to curb the superhuman batting feats of Don Bradman, but the laws of the game were subsequently changed, and Jardine remains one of the most hated figures in Australia to this day. Perhaps more similar with today’s Bairstow episode was the underarm incident in which the Australian captain of the day, Greg Chappell instructed his brother Trevor to bowl the last ball of the game underarm to prevent New Zealand from scoring six runs of the last ball of a one day international.
Yet, somehow today’s action by Australia is not receiving the same opprobrium as these other episodes even though in my opinion, it is thoroughly deserving. Today’s dismissal came at the deciding juncture of what may well be the decisive Test match in the series. Given the high stakes, it was a real shame that the series was decided in this manner on a technicality rather than based on cricketing skills as the fans were all expecting. Some of the same commentators such as Ricky Ponting and Eoin Morgan who were condoning Australia today have accused Indian spinner Ashwin of violating the spirit of the game when he “Mankaded” batsmen backing up too far at the non striker’s end. In that case, it was also considered inappropriate that he contemplated “Mankading” without warning the batsman at least once, whereas I did not see any warnings issued to Bairstow today. The subsequent coverage of the dismissal made it clear that it was completely planned and intentional.
Episodes like these just expose the double standards of these respected judges of the game who look at things differently given who the perpetrator is and who the victim is. When a bowler from a foreign country takes a step like “mankading” it is against the spirit of the game. But when wicketkeeper from one’s own country “stumps” a batter when he was not attempting a run, it is considered perfectly fine. Whether it is just another case of bowlers being treated unfairly or something more insidious is hard to say with certainty but what does seem to be clear is that the “spirit of cricket” is nothing more than a weapon of political convenience these days. It may be better to forget such lofty notions in the heat of the battle where millimetres can be the difference between historic wins and career crushing losses and stick to the laws of the cricket. At least that increases the likelihood of consistency and conveys the expectations on players with greater clarity. In the interim, if what Carey and Cummins did was perfectly fine, maybe we need to rewrite cricket history and look at what Jardine, Chappell, Ashwin and others like them did in a more forgiving light from now on.
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