A few months ago, Stuart Broad, whose father is an ICC Match Referee, appeared in a video promoting the “Spirit of Cricket” for the MCC. Here it is.
In his own words, “It is important that you do play fair, you respect the opposition, you respect the Umpires”. He concludes “You are there to entertain the crowd and they need to see cricket played the right way”.
I know we’re all supposed to be hyper rationalists now. And by hyper-rationalists, I don’t mean we have an allegiance to the facts in all their complicated forms, and to the rigorous logic and thought and honesty that dealing with those facts demands, it means we are supposed to take a couple of points and beat everyone over the head with them. There are two in this case:
1. The Umpires are there to do a job. It is not the batsman’s role to walk. You get bad calls and you get good ones and they even themselves out in the long run.
2. Either you know you edged it, or you don’t. The thickness or obviousness of the edge does not matter.
The first one is demonstrably silly. If you believe that, you can’t also believe in a fair contest in which the rules are applied evenly and fairly and with rigor. Unless we stop having human umpires (or, perhaps, even if we stop having human umpires), Umpires will make more mistakes if batsmen don’t walk, than if they do. That’s just mathematically true.
The second is also false, except in some excessively distilled disembodied sense. In real time, when you are playing, while it is true as a physical fact that the ball either touches the bat or it doesn’t, the perception of this contact can take multiple forms for the different sets of people involved, of which there are three – the batsman, the fielders and bowler, and the umpire.
1. The batsman could have feathered the ball, such that even he only suspects he got a touch, and the fielders also only have a slight suspicion. We’ve seen this, especially with hotspot. On more than one occasion, an edge is revealed without anyone from the fielding side appealing.
2. The batsman could have got a good edge, but genuinely an edge, and also hit the pad or the shoe or the ground with the bat around the same time. This may create doubt, either for the fielding side, or for the batsman about whether he got a touch. It has to be remembered, that not all the parties involved see what has happened, many of them go simply by the sound. This is why many times we find fielding sides appealing for catches when the bat hits the ground or the pad.
3. The batsman could have gotten a huge edge, which is obvious to everybody. 999 times out of a thousand, the batsman walks away for these. Most of those times, the Umpire doesn’t even have to make a decision. This is simply a fact. Most of the time the batsman will simply walk away.
I would submit, as a matter of simple logic, that it is not morally the same thing to stand your ground as a batsman – to “not walk”, in each of the three cases above.
Broads actions were neither normal, nor commonplace – they involved a radical departure from contemporary convention at the highest level of the game.
Stuart Broad is clearly an highly skilled and talented sportsman. But he has also shown himself to be a mediocre, third-rate sportsman. His actions do not measure up to his own stated standards or conduct.
But of course, it will be seen as a minor matter. The English press will go back to complaining about the BCCI not acting in the “larger interests of the game”, even though in the coming days and weeks they will condone an English player wrestling those very same “larger interests” into a sodden, dark corner.
I predict that exactly zero English reporters will encourage Australia to press charges against Broad under the Code of Conduct for conduct contrary to the spirit of the game. I think Australia should press charges. I hope they do. It will set a good precedent for an ICC Match Referee to have to rule on whether standing your ground after hitting the ball to first slip constitutes conduct that is not contrary to the spirit of the game.
Denesh Ramdin was suspended for two matches by Match Referee Chris Broad, who happens to be Stuart Broad’s father. Referee Broad said at the time. “This is regarded as a serious offence as it is the responsibility of all players to act in the spirit of the game.” He added “I hope Mr Ramdin has learnt his lesson from this incident and that we will not see such behaviour by him or any player in the future.”
Notice that Broad does not limit his comments to the fielding side.
This is a test for the ICC. There is a provision for the ICC’s Chief Executive, in this case, David Richardson, to bring a Code of Conduct charge against a player (see 3.1.3, p. 13.9 here). If the ICC does not act, it will mean that they are Ok with batsmen standing their ground no matter what. It will at least make it clear that batsmen standing their ground even when it is clear to everyone that they are out, is not contrary to the spirit of the game – that it is not contrary to the spirit of the game to stand your ground in the hope that the Umpire will make a mistake.
It may well be that Broad is right, and I as an observer, and every other batsman who walks away when he knows he’s out, is wrong. But at least it will have been tested.
I doubt it will happen. Further, I doubt whether anybody else would even suggest that it should happen.
