File photo of Matthew Wade of Australia, who is allowed to bat despite obstructing the field in a T20I against England | Photo Credit: Getty Images
Cricket’s continuance with ethical issues took another turn recently when Australian Matthew Wade was allowed to bat in a T20I against England for apparently obstructing the field as the fielding side decided not to appeal .
Was England captain Jos Buttler being overly sporting – he later said he was in no mood to get into controversies so soon on a long tour – and was Wade downright wrong? Yes and yes.
You can watch the sequence on YouTube. With Australia needing 40 runs from four overs, Wade got the better of Mark Wood. The bowler runs forward after seeing the catch and the batsman extends his hand. This is a breach of Law 37, but the England captain chose silence and diplomacy over appeal and dismissal.
breaking the law
Three rare forms of dismissal in cricket – obstructing the field, hitting the ball twice and hitting the ball twice – call for two conditions to be met. There must be an appeal from the fielding side, and the umpire must be convinced that the act was ‘deliberately’.
In Wade’s case, a law was violated. The umpires knew it, the players knew it and those watching knew it. Yet it is a feature of the game that no one can do anything about it. Wade had one way of improving – if he threw away his wicket on the next ball. Such a display of remorse would be both sporting and fair – but the modern sportsman is not one to win moral battles. His purpose is more concrete and immediate.
This is where the third umpire can come into play suo moto Incident notification like Supreme Court. There has been an infringement, the proof is in the television replays, and why shouldn’t the method used to judge boundaries and stumpings be used here? Maybe only the on-field umpires can be given the power to decide.
previous example
While England great Len Hutton is the only batsman to field obstruction in Test cricket, the ODI list includes Mohinder Amarnath, Inzamam-ul-Haq and Ben Stokes. The only other batsman to be dismissed in T20Is is Englishman Jason Roy. So it is a rare method of dismissal, and unlike ‘mankading’ which, despite recent rulings, has a moral component, not associated with an appeal for obstruction of the field.
Believing this to be the case, and needing to be seen, Butler was trying very hard to overeat the pudding. His reason suggests that if this had happened in the middle or towards the end of his stay in Australia, he would have appealed. It may sound practical, but it doesn’t make any cricketing sense. England won in the end, so it didn’t matter.
To his credit, there is a reluctance to appeal for dismissals in games where the bowler has not taken a wicket. Hence the cloud on the three forms mentioned above, as well as in ‘Mankading’. But somehow it’s only the last name that has wrapped itself in moral clothing that doesn’t attach any particular stigma to others. One of those specialties is what the game is known for.
raising voice and reputation
It is unfair to expect a batsman to make amends for a sporting or practical decision by the opposition captain who upset the umpire. But with one gesture, the tone of the game would have gone up and the reputation of the player would have been united.
true sportsmanship
At a recent gathering where badminton ace Prakash Padukone was present, one of the guests recalled how decades ago, the umpire had given a wrong decision in favor of the Indian in an international match. “I’ll never forget,” said Guest, “how Prakash deliberately hit the next point and changed serve (this was the old scoring system).” I asked Prakash if you would have regretted if you had lost, he replied, “No. It was the right thing to do.”
Gundappa Vishwanath feels the same way about recalling Bob Taylor in the Jubilee Test all those years ago, an act that cost India a defeat. “I’ll do the same today,” he says simply.
If sports cannot be played then what else can happen?