While inevitable, this move is significant in its implications about the absurdities of cricketers self-adjudicating their contests. The equilibrium required for this to be workable would be a climate where every single individual acquiesced to an agreement of this kind. However a single defiant batsman or over-eager fielder would render such an agreement useless, particularly when exacerbated by horrific umpiring as was the case at Sydney.
Unfortunately the issue has been cloaked by the rhetoric of the 'spirit of cricket' whereby it seen as virtuous to walk when they know they are out or to accept the opinion of your opponents on contested catches. Stephen Fleming seemed to sum up the basic ethos of this movement best:
The fallacy of equating the quirks and nuances of the game with the method of arbitration on its rules is the main issue here. At the risk of overt partisanship, I failed to see the humanity in Andrew Symonds being gifted the oppurtunity to compile an extra 130 runs, or the early curtailment of the innings of Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly on the fifth day."I'm a traditionalist. I still like the human element."
While many issues emerged from the maelstrom, let's hope that the rest of the series can at least take a cue from the proper dismissal of these ridiculous gentlemen's agreements.
3 comments:
"I failed to see the humanity in Andrew Symonds being gifted the oppurtunity to compile an extra 130runs"
Gee, Its pretty obvious isnt it? When it comes to bad desisions, batsmen get about the same amount of unfair dismissals as they do lucky breaks. Therefore the fortunate and unfortunate bad desisions balance out. It only makes sense that when you do get a lucky break you dont walk, as this would put them out of balance and you would get getting given out more times then you actually are out.
Although I thought there may be a hidden motive behind the desision to go after Habajan Singh for alledged racist comments. Ponting simply cant play him!
mmm. Yes.
I think you've missed the point. Of course during a career you will get roughly the same number of good and bad decisions, which is why walking will never be an instinctive trait.
What I was pointing out is that evoking the "Spirit of Cricket" to condemn batsmen for not walking is foolish. The human element in the game comes from all the competitors striving to compete with their utmost ability, not from the idea that we should just accept bad umpiring as inevitable.
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