My apologies for not posting for nearly a week, I just started on my first job this week, and so I got a bit busy.
Ah, we have a violation of the often misunderstood ‘Spirit of Cricket’. If you haven’t seen it yet, just go to the link.
In a nutshell, Grant Elliott was called for a quick single by Kyle Mills, and Ryan Sidebottom, who was the bowler, ran across the pitch to get the ball to effect a run out, but in the process, collided against Elliott and both fell flat to the ground. Pietersen swoops in and throws the ball to Bell, who whips the bails off at the non – striker’s end.
But what followed was, indeed sensible stuff from the umpires, as Mark Benson asked Collingwood if he wanted to revoke the appeal. Collingwood denied the opportunity, and he was given out, to the utter disgust of Elliott and the NZ dressing room. Hats off to Mark Benson for not giving the decision immediately.
However, justice was served, and an overthrow gave NZ the game. The NZ boys were really pumped up, and many of them refused to give any handshakes.
Later, during the post-match conference, Collingwood apologised for the decision, saying it was done ‘in the heat of the moment’.
However, I’m not really convinced by this. Though a lot of pundits have applauded his humility, I would say that he may have known that it was against the ‘Spirit’ of the game, but decided that winning was of utmost importance. He may have decided that he would apologise regardless of the outcome.
This also doesn’t show well on the skipper, and also serves to grill down the view that today’s cricketers are ready to win at all costs, even if it means knocking down the stumps when the batsman had a genuine collision with a fielder.
However, former England skipper Nasser Hussain had something interesting to say about this. He says that the umpire should’ve gone over to Colly and told him ‘Look we have had a look at this upstairs; it has just been a genuine collision we are going to call a dead ball and get on with the game.’ It would’ve taken the heat out of the situation.
However, Collingwood has been banned for four matches for going behind the ‘over-rate’ twice in the past 12 months, which means he’d miss the last ODI against NZ, the ODI against Scotland, the T20 and the first ODI against South Africa.
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