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The cricket world has erupted again. Not because Sri Lanka’s generally inexperienced cricket team was thrashed by South Africa in the later matches. The team returned to Colombo last week without fanfare and without the politicians who hang around waiting to be photographed with a victorious team.

Had our team won, it would have been a different kettle of fish, with the Sports Minister and other panjandrums of the cricketing fraternity waiting with floral tributes of one kind or another to hand over and claim some kudos.

No, not this time for sure. They have returned to the woodwork from whence they came. But something happened in the neighbourhood which served as a heaven-sent opportunity for some of our politicians,   quarrelling office bearers and others, who handle the money to hide their tainted faces.

2014 Mankad incident: Sachithra Senanayake appeals to the umpire for a run-out of Jos Buttler.

The importance of last week’s incident is that it occurred in the cricket-mad country, just north of us, and we, too, were a party to a similar happening in the UK nearly five-years ago and it involved the same batsman from England, which taught its vast colonial empire this gentlemen’s game.

What happened in India during a recent IPL match is disgraceful. It is doubly disgraceful not only because England is considered the mecca of cricket and its players are said to be gentlemen who adhere to the law and spirit of the game. Like hell they do!

Therein lies that glorious untruth though ‘lie’ might be a more accurate description. Cricketing aficionados surely know it was the MCC under Douglas Jardin that launched what has come to be known as the “bodyline” era, using fast bowler Harold Larwood and other pacies to pepper the bodies of the Australian batsmen. Remember there were no helmets and body armour to wear during the 1932-33 series.

Those involved in the most recent incident of what has come to be known as ‘Mankadism’ — after Indian cricketer Vinoo Mankad ran out Australian batman Bill Brown for straying out of the crease at the bowler’s end way back in the 1940s — were captain Ashwin Ravichandran and England player Jos Buttler, both playing in an IPL match.

2019 Mankad incident: Jos Buttler being run out by Ashwin. Pic courtesy IPL 2019/Sportzpics

It is best to remember that both Ashwin and Buttler have been ‘guilty’ of this action on the field previously. Ashwin ran out Lahiru Thirimanne in an ODI match in Brisbane in 2012, but Sehwag and Tendulkar intervened to settle the issue.

Jos Buttler is no novice in this game cheating. He has been moving out of the crease at the bowler’s end to steal an advantage by shortening the distance a batsman has to run for a single. As anybody who has played cricket, and even those who have not, know that a few inches could make a difference in the scramble for a run.

Buttler has done this in England and now in India. I throw my mind back to 2014 when Sri Lanka was touring England. A controversy raged when Sachitra Senanayake ran out Jos Buttler for trying to steal an advantage by leaving the crease early and thereby trying to gain an advantage. Past English cricket captains and assorted cricketers and commentators joined the fray questioning Sri Lanka’s understanding of the spirit of the game while admitting that Senanayake acted within the laws of the game.

I was Deputy High Commissioner in London at the time and like many other Sri Lankans was angered at what I saw and the unfair criticism of the Sri Lanka team that I wrote about it to the Sunday Times. I thought the Sri Lanka public should know what really happened that day at the ODI match in Edgbaston.

What follows is part of what I said five years ago and provides some information about the antics of Jos Buttler then and now.

“Perhaps to divert attention from England’s dismal performance in one particular match and eventual defeat in the ODIs, all sorts of red herrings are being dragged across the cricket pitches in the UK by English cricketers then and now, an occasional commentator and booing crowds that are trying to bring the rowdyism so wantonly displaced by boorish football fans to the cricket grounds.

“Just as in the case of Muralitharan in Australia, Sachitra Senanayake, another off-spinner, had a spanner thrown in the works. Now he is also being accused, along with Captain Angelo Mathews, of denigrating the spirit of cricket.

Among those who have joined in this chorus of criticism is former England captain Michael Vaughan who spins a farcical argument. Says Vaughan in The Daily Telegraph: ‘I know he was out of his crease but Jos Buttler was not trying to steal a single. He was only a few inches out of his ground.’

“Michael Vaughan needs to visit an optician or get a few lessons in basic maths. His comment piece was immediately next to a four-column picture that shows Buttler a foot or more outside his crease. That picture puts the lie to Vaughan’s nonsense.

“Perhaps he was not trying to steal a single. He was trying to steal the show.

“Between visits to the ophthalmologist and his math teacher, Vaughan might profitably spend some time catching up on the laws of cricket since his playing days. The ICC playing conditions actually amended the MCC regulations in 2011. This amended law under which this series is played, is clear enough. A bowler can run-out the non-striker if he strays from the crease thus taking an unfair advantage.

“In fact such a run-out is possible both under the MCC laws and ICC playing conditions though the two vary somewhat. There should be no quarrel about that. Cricket pundits such as Sir Ian Botham, Michael Atherton and West Indian great Michael Holding were all in agreement that the bowler did nothing illegitimate by acting as he did because the laws under which they played permitted him to do so.

“But those who would admonish us to adhere strictly to the law seem to want exemption from such observance when they are guilty of violations.

“While soft-pedalling the relevant law, critics focus on the so-called spirit of the game. There is nothing in the law that states that an offending batsman should be first warned of his indiscretion before the bowler acts against him.

“In this instance, Buttler had been warned twice a couple of overs earlier but he persisted in doing what he did. He had done so in a previous match, too, thus surreptitiously stealing runs.

“So, who brought disrepute by violating the spirit of the game? Was it Senanayake who warned Buttler twice even though it was not required of him or was it Buttler who continued to flout the warnings and stride out of the crease?

“If Buttler sought to ignore those warnings and act as though he was above the law, then he deserved what he got and there was no violation of the applicable law or the spirit of cricket.

“One other point: If the law is clear enough there is no necessity whatsoever for the umpires to ask the captain of the fielding side whether he stands by the decision to run him out.

“Why are umpires bending over backwards when the law is clear? Nothing in that law states that umpires should consult the captain or the captain has a choice in the matter. Those who wield the law on the playing field are the umpires and they should act as such.

Sri Lanka did nothing wrong. Captain Cook’s ire is not because of the run-out but because on his watch England lost that series to Sri Lanka.

“It is he who has to learn the spirit of the game not Senanayake or Mathews.

“In days gone by there was a cricket match between “Gentlemen and Players”. It was abandoned many years back, possibly because they could not find enough gentlemen in the UK to make up a team. A wise decision no doubt. You can see why.”