Sportsmanship – Australian Style

by Vijaya Chandrasoma

I am neither a cricketer nor a sports writer, just an avid enthusiast of the game. I am in total agreement with the sentiments expressed in the excellent letter penned by Mr. S. Skandakumar to legendary English umpire, Mr. Simon Taufel, on his comments about the incident relating to the dismissal of Jonny Bairstow during the second Ashes test at Edgbaston a couple of weeks ago.

Though Taufel argued that this controversial decision changed the complexion of the entire match, he said, “Correct decision made. They (England) just didn’t like it. For that ball to be considered dead, both sides need to disregard it is in play. Clearly, the fielding side hadn’t”.

I am not trying to dispute the opinion of one of the greatest umpires ever to grace a cricket field. However, strictly according to the rules of cricket, there is one aspect of this dismissal which is definitely a grey area, which should have played an important role in the final decision of the third umpire. A grey area is defined as “an ill-defined situation or area of activity not readily conforming to a category or set of rules”. In other words, a matter of doubt.

Giving the benefit of the doubt to the batsman is not merely a tradition in the game. It is the Law. This is especially true of the LBW rule. LBW is governed by Law 36, which states that “the striker is out LBW if he intercepts the ball with any part of his person and but for the interception, the ball would have hit the wicket”. Unfortunately, the decision that the umpire is faced with making within seconds is not humanly possible. No one, not even modern technology, can predict to a certainty the path the ball will take after it hits the pad. There are too many extraneous factors – the wind, the degree of the spin and turn of the ball – which make a 100% accurate decision well-nigh impossible.

Today’s technology, in the form of the Decision Review System (DRS) has made matters infinitely easier for the field umpire in the decision of most dismissals. For example, DRS is invaluable in the event of a snick, to determine whether the ball had taken even a minute edge with the bat before being caught by the wicket-keeper, an edge at times not discernible to the human eye.

However, where an LBW appeal is concerned, the DRS confirms or overrules the decision based often on the “umpire’s call”. If the umpire puts his finger up, then the batter is out, if DRS determines that the ball would have hit any part of the stumps and bails. But if the umpire rules NOT OUT, the batter is deemed NOT OUT if the ball hits the outside half of the leg stump, the off stump or the top of the bails.

So in the event of the umpire’s NOT OUT decision, even the DRS gives the benefit of the doubt to the batsman.

According to the Laws of Cricket, the ball is considered dead once the fielding side and both batters have ceased to regard it as in play. At Edgbaston, the batter, Bairstow clearly regarded the ball as dead, having ducked under an innocent bouncer from bowler Cameron Green and seeing the ball nestled in wicketkeeper Carey’s gloves. He was in no way trying to steal an unfair advantage to get an extra run. On the other hand, Carey having caught the ball, saw that Bairstow had wrongly assumed the ball was dead, took unfair advantage of a justifiable misconception and threw the ball at the stumps.

There is no way that Marais Erasmus, the third umpire could have made a certain decision that the ball had settled in the wicketkeeper’s gloves for the required time to be called a dead ball. I have seen many catchers in the field throw the ball in the air immediately after making the

catch, in exultation, in less time than the ball had nestled in Carey’s gloves.The correct thing for Carey to do would have been to warn Bairstow before the stumping. The correct thing for Aussies’ Captain Cummins to do, after the dismissal was confirmed by the third umpire, would have been to call Bairstow back. But these are Australians. To expect them to do the gentlemanly thing is optimistic, to expect them to even do the legal thing is a matter of hopeful conjecture.

Remember Sandpapergate, the 2018 ball tampering scandal in an Australian test match against South Africa. The then Australian captain, Steve Smith and vice-captain, David Warner were both found guilty of collusion in that dastardly attempt by the bowler to sandpaper the ball to enhance its swing. This was not a misdemeanor of bad sportsmanship; it was a cricketing felony of a heinous nature. An illegal attempt to gain a distinct advantage by altering equipment with the specific motive of bowling out the opposing batters.

These two “gentlemen” are now playing for Australia in the current Ashes series, having escaped committing an act of brazen cheating with a mere slap on the wrist.  English Seamer, Stuart Broad told Carey, “You’ll be forever remembered for that.” No, he won’t. This is an incident which will probably never happen again. Carey will be remembered as just another Australian who is a stranger to the concept of sportsmanship.

It would be interesting to compare the punishment meted out to one of the most respected cricketers of his time, Indian all-rounder, Vinoo Mankad with the Edgbaston fiasco. Mankad was regarded as one of India’s greatest-ever all-rounders. In 2021, he was inducted to the ICC Hall of Fame, one of the ten iconic cricketers so inducted, including household names like Sir Learie Constantine, Ted Dexter, Stan McCabe and our own Kumar Sangakkara.

In spite of his illustrious career, Vinoo Mankad is best and unfairly known for one incident on a test match during an Indian tour of Australia in 1947/8. He ran out Bill Brown, the batsman at the non-striker’s end, who was backing up too far and out of the crease at the point of delivery. This was an obvious violation of the rules by the batsman, who was clearly trying to steal an unfair advantage.

This act of supposed poor sportsmanship infuriated the Australians, who introduced a contemptuous term, “Mankading” for anyone who used this perfectly legal method of running out the batsman at the non-striker’s end who was out of his crease at the point of delivery. Australians, and other cricketing nations, contend that a warning should be given before such a run out was contemplated. No such warning is required according to the rules; it had been traditionally regarded as a courtesy to warn the batsman that he was breaking the rules and would be run out if he persists in trying to steal an advantage of a few yards.

In fact, two warnings had already been given by Mankad, but Brown persisted in backing up and was well out of the crease at the point of Mankads’s delivery when he ran him out. Even the great Don Bradman slammed the critics of Mankad, saying, “For the life of me, I can’t understand why (the press) questioned his (Mankad’s) sportsmanship. The laws of cricket make it quite clear that the non-striker must keep within his ground until the ball has been delivered…. By backing up too far or too early, the non-striker is very obviously gaining an unfair advantage”.

Both Carey and Mankad acted well within the rules. Unlike Carey, Mankad warned the batsman Brown twice before running him out, a courtesy not offered to Bairstow by Carey. Most importantly, there is one salient point which should have been taken into consideration by the third umpire. Bairstow was not trying to steal an advantage by his actions. Brown was.

Carey’s name will fade into obscurity for the mediocre cricketer he is; Steve Smith and David Warner, who tacitly endorsed Carey’s action, really have no reputation for sportsmanship to lose. But Mankad’s great career will always have an asterisk against his name because of a perfectly legal action, originally stigmatized by the Australian press. A stigma which followed him throughout his illustrious career.

The point I am laboring to make is that the old rules and lessons Mr. Skandakumar and I (I am taking the liberty of using his distinguished name with mine in the same sentence, because we both attended Royal Prep) learnt at our alma mater are lost. The truisms we learnt at the School of our Fathers (inaccurate in my father’s case; sadly, he went to Ananda), do not seem to hold true today. Axioms like “The umpire’s word is law”; “the benefit of the doubt always goes to the batsman”; “it’s not that you won or lost but how you played the game”. Or most simply, “It’s not cricket, old man”. All gone.

I am an enthusiastic follower of the game of cricket, but the one match etched in my memory is one in the 1950s, which to my pre-teen mind, represented the very epitome of sportsmanship.

Royal was playing St. Joseph’s at Reid Avenue. Nearing the end of the game, when Royal had to make a few runs to win, the umpires called a halt to the game because of rain/bad light. The Josephian captain elected to continue playing in heavy rain to enable Royal to score the few runs necessary to win. In his mind, Royal should not have been deprived of a well-deserved victory because of the vagaries of the weather. In appreciation of his sportsmanship, he was cheered and carried on Royal shoulders after the match. Today, of course, he would have been lynched by the Josephians.

O tempora O mores.