This is Not Cricket
EVENTS on the third day of the second Test match between Sri Lanka and Pakistan in Colombo on Sunday will go down as one of the saddest in the history of cricket. It has now become routine with touring cricketers to question the verdict given by the host country's umpires. Very few batsmen walk even when they know they are out. It is no longer the exception but the rule for batsmen to stand at the crease and glare and growl at the umpire when given out. Test cricket is no longer the gentleman's game it was at the end of the Bradman era. From the ragging affairs in Peshawar, when the MCC were here in 1952, to date, umpiring controversies have multiplied, to a dangerous level. Hardly a series passes without incident. Crowd misbehaviour unheard of a generation ago, has now become a commonplace occurrence. Player indiscipline is on the increase. Relations between opposing teams are almost invariably strained so much so that Test cricket, instead of promoting international amity, is beginning to undermine it.
There was talk yesterday that the Pakistani cricketers were so annoyed with partisan umpiring that they were not willing to continue with the tour. Happily, the Board of Control for Cricket in Pakistan , reacting with admirable speed to the crisis, have taken a different view and have sent out instructions that the team must continue with the tour. A Board representative is flying to Colombo tomorrow to sort things out.
It is to be sincerely hoped that with the rest day intervening, tempers shall have cooled down today and the Test match shall resume on time. As things stand, only one result is now possible Pakistan defeat. And if lose they must, they should do so with dignity. There is disgrace in defeat but there is much humiliation in the type of behaviour in which Javed Miandad indulged on Sunday . Granted that a spectator threw a stone at him and used objectionable language when he was returning to the pavilion after having been given out leg before. That was like adding injury to injury. However, a Test cricketer is not worth his salt if he cannot stand crowd misbehaviour with equanimity. He should never have lost his temper and charged at the erring spectator with his bat. This was behaviour unbecoming a gentleman, and the least Miandad can now do in expiation is to offer a public apology.
As for the more complicated question of umpiring. There has been a rash of bitter disputes in recent years. Gavaskar led his team off the field when an umpiring decision went against India in Australia . A few seasons ago, Sir Lanka were most unhappy at some of the decisions against them when they were last. Kapil Dev minced no words against the Sri Lankan umpires when India visited that country last year. How is the issue to be resolved, then? If there is a general complaint against consistently bad umpiring in a particular country, the matter should be reported to the International Cricket Conference. It should, in the ultimate analysis, be the ICC's duty to appoint a third umpire if it feels that cricketing relationship between two countries has reached breaking point. Another solution might be to appoint a third umpire, the television camera. Whenever in doubt, an umpire on the field should consult an action replay camera. But, above all, if a batsman feels he is out, he should be man enough to walk. There simply is no honour in contrived victory.
March 17, 1986
