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Cricket was almost changed forever this afternoon in the ODI match between India and Sri Lanka and not for the better either.
Sri Lanka were cruising really at 4/196 with ten overs remaining in the match, when Ravi Ashwin, as he was bowling to Angelo Matthews, Mankad-ed Thirimanne.
A Mankad? He stopped his delivery, and knocked off the bails at the non-strikers end because Thirimanne was out of his crease.
According to the rules of cricket, Ashwin is well within his rights to appeal and if the appeal is lodged formally, then Thirimanne must be given out.
However, according to the ethics of the game, you just don’t do it; the exception being when you warn the batsman about creeping down the pitch and if he continues to do so, then the run-out is allowed.
But it does raise an interesting point as to who monitors the rules of cricket. Or rather, who monitors the ethics of cricket? Can you monitor them?
Thirimanne was 45 not out at the time, with a strike rate of 100 and clearly the danger man for Sri Lanka. Get him out and India will restrict Sri Lanka to a smaller total, which may, in turn win them the match.
Now fortunately for everyone, the wise head of Tendulkar probably made sure this appeal didn’t go through, and everyone went back to play as normal.
But for one fleeting moment, it did look like the ethics of the once-called gentleman’s game were going to be out done by the rules of the game. If you thought we’d come a long way since the infamous “underarm” incident between Australia and New Zealand, you’d be right, but only to an extent.
The Ashwin-Thirimanne incident almost brought cricket back 20 years and very nearly reopened a closet that should have been bolted shut a long time ago.
Just goes to show that when a side is losing, they truly will do anything to get themselves a win — even if that means abandoning all the ethics and morals of a game to do so.
Because at the end of the day, winning truly is everything.
No side will ever be measured by how they played the World Cup final; they will only be measured by whether they won the final or not.
Let’s just be thankful that despite his lack of runs this summer, Sachin Tendulkar had enough common sense to urge the captain Sehwag to withdraw the appeal.
For if he hadn’t, then that truly would be a disaster — not just for India, but for the progress of cricket worldwide.
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