Rule of law trampled to protect 'spirit of the game' at Trent Bridge: Experts

Trent Bridge (Nottingham, UK), Aug.1 (ANI): Whatever happened at Trent Bridge during the second India-England Test has to be seen as a burst of sentimental cricket illiteracy.

According to a report in The Independent, laws are not there to be pushed aside when it suits the prejudices of any particular audience.

England middle-order batsman Ian Bell may have played a brilliant innings of 159, but that does not take away the fact that the rules and nuances that have been associated with the game of cricket for more than a century, have been given short shrift, especially when everyone on and off the ground was aware that Bell had made a fundamental error.

The question that arises is what really was the basis of the appeal to Dhoni by Strauss and Flower? Was it that there had been a miscarriage of justice? No, that couldn't be so because the Indians and the umpires had all behaved impeccably. They had followed the laws of the game, quite simply.

Praveen Kumar, the fielder whose somewhat languid but plainly successful attempt to prevent the boundary first created the confusion in Bell's mind, made it clear that he did not know whether the ball had hit the boundary rope.

Dhoni transferred the ball to team mate Abhinav Mukund at the stumps, the bails were removed and Dhoni appealed. The verdict went to third official Billy Bowden, who ruled in the only way available to him. He said that Bell was out. So where was there to go?

Only, of course, to that uncharted philosophical country known as the spirit of the game.

Strauss's face on the balcony was a picture of disdain and disgust, and no doubt there was little change in his demeanour when he presented himself with Flower at the door of the Indian dressing room.

Dhoni, we are told, carried the English pleading back to his team. The consensus was that Bell should be reinstated, which was a display of generosity repeated when he fell after adding 22 more runs.

Generosity, perhaps, was involved but maybe also a degree of working statesmanship.

That certainly was the effect of the earlier decision, when a mob reaction so quickly returned to the sweetness of a mellow sports crowd.

Unquestionably, by commuting Bell's sentence, India saved Trent Bridge from bitter scenes of recrimination that almost certainly would have also polluted the rest of the series. But were they right? The instant debate was predictably furious.

Former England captains David Gower, Michael Atherton and Nasser Hussain argued strongly and cogently for the rule of the law.

David Lloyd and Shane Warne, of all people, for "the spirit of the game", but the latter did so much less persuasively once he was asked to speculate on the reaction his old captain Steve Waugh might have had on receipt of the request made to Dhoni by Strauss and Flower.

The truth is that when cricket was asked a basic question yesterday, it blinked in an entirely unsatisfactory way. It wasn't asked to adjudicate on a piece of sharp practice or borderline skullduggery. An umpire didn't plead, but merely sought confirmation that one had been registered. Then due process followed with an unequivocal decision.

So why was it revoked? Because England, backed by a wave of home- crowd emotion, pleaded their case.

Their only case was that Bell was confused and acted in ignorance, which means that on one occasion at least ignorance of the law has been an effective defence.

In the end, of course, the near certainty is that this will be a controversy of significance barely brushing the outcome of this second Test.

This was virtually guaranteed when Matt Prior and Tim Bresnan picked up their cudgels after Bell left, finally, with the warm congratulations of the great Rahul Dravid ringing in his ears, and Eoin Morgan completed some fine entrenchment of his Test place after a run of indifferent form.

However, this didn't prevent a gushing statement from the English cricket board which spoke of a great triumph for the spirit of cricket - an underlining of some of the game's deepest values.

It spoke of the wonderful entertainment value provided so far in a little more than one and a half Tests, and it allowed that India's appeal had been entirely valid. (ANI)