Hypocrisy…? Gilchrist’s squash ball or Murali’s bent arm
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Just the other day, former Australian wicket-keeper batsman Adam Gilchrist, is “all for it” he says, for the addition of another umpire exclusively for making no-ball calls if it helps “arrive at the right decision.” No doubt, there have been instances of umpires missing out on front-foot no-balls, and eventually checking with the third umpire when batsmen have been dismissed.
On the face of it, this suggestion from Gilchrist seems fair dinkum, to quote an Australian slang, meaning fair enough. Though the writer feels the umpires’ room will be very crowded! More importantly, that this suggestion came from Gilchrist seems fishy to say the least, or has Gilchrist at last turned over a new leaf?
Australian Test cricketers are famous in their attempts to stretch the laws or in the recent instance when three Australians, including Steve Smith, were found guilty of breaking the Laws of Cricket and were duly punished. Previously, outstanding paceman, Dennis Lillee, attempted to use a bat made out of aluminium in a Test match (trying to promote a new trade?) which resulted in the amendment of the Law (6.1) which now clearly stipulates that the blade of the bat must be made ”solely of wood.” Then, Australian captain, Ricky Ponting tried to stretch the Law by using a graphite-coated bat, but that, fortunately, did not pass muster with the lawmakers either.
Now the scene shifts to South Africa, when skipper Hansie Cronje while helping himself with largesse provided from the bookies, and with the knowledge of the coach Bob Woolmer – who eventually lost his life under mysterious circumstances – by wearing an ear-piece in order to obtain advice from the coach in the pavilion. This ruse too was vetoed by the lawmakers. Eventually Cronje too lost his life in a plane crash – there too many questions remain unanswered re the ‘accident’.
Now let’s look closely at Australian, Gilchrist with his suggestion for an additional umpire.
So far so good it seems. But the proposal coming from Gilchrist, as mentioned above, brings back salty memories of 12 years ago when Sri Lanka met Australia in the 2007 World Cup final played at Barbados. Statistics show the result as a win for Australia by 53 runs (on the D/L method). However, why did the ICC penalize 5 match officials whose combined errors that caused the World Cup to end farcically with scenes of near darkness? That is one aspect of the question.
Next let us look at the stunning innings by Gilchrist when an important question still remains unanswered.
Opening the innings, Gilchrist won the game practically single-handedly by thumping 149 runs in 104 balls including 100 runs in boundaries which included 13 fours and 8 sixes! While Gilchrist was making merry, it seemed strange that other stroke makers in his side (Ponting, Hayden, Symonds, Watson and Clarke) merely scraped together only 109 runs in 127 balls.
It seemed quite a remarkable innings, when Gilchrist who had only aggregated a modest 304 runs (off 332 balls) until the sensational innings in the final, which comprised half-centuries against Bangladesh and Netherlands. This is not all, while Gilchrist tonked 13 fours and 8 sixes, the aforementioned quintet scraped together a mere 7 fours and 2 sixes! Why such a discrepancy? As his mentor, former squash and Sheffield Shield player in the 1960’s, Bob Meuleman – son of Ken Meuleman (1923-2004) who played one Test for Australia, against New Zealand in 1946 – explained the sensational innings:
“He (Gilchrist) had a few hits before he went off to the World Cup; he didn’t have part of a squash ball in his glove and he hit them like he couldn’t even play fourth grade. He then experimented by having a part of the squash ball inside his bottom hand and he then hit the ball so good……” Indeed, a staggering 65, or 44% of his runs, were rifled from strokes in the V, including six fours and five sixes! Need one say more about the usefulness of the squash ball?
Now how does the Laws of Cricket consider this as “sharp practice?” The preamble to the Laws state:
“Cricket is a game that owes much of its unique appeal to the fact that it should be played not only within its Laws, but also within the Spirit of the game. Any action which is seen to abuse this spirit causes injury to the game itself. The major responsibility for ensuring the spirit of fair play rests with the captain. Indeed, use of the squash ball by a batsman to enhance his performance can easily be categorized as ‘sharp practice’. After all, Laws 5 and 6, dealing with the Bat and the Ball, clearly states that there is no provision for the use of any part of a squash ball by a batsman.
Law 6 (b) clearly and unequivocally states: “Before the toss and during the match, the umpires shall satisfy themselves that the implements of the game conform to the requirements of law 5 (the ball) and law 6 (the bat), together with either laws 8.2 (size of stumps) and 8.3 (the bails) or, if appropriate, law 8.4 junior cricket. And c(i) no players uses implements other than that permitted as above…….”
So did Gilchrist receive special dispensation for the use of a part of a squash ball to be secreted in the glove of? Obviously not.
As a scientific study of this issue by an expert concluded:
“A squash ball is a rubber ball. Unlike a cricket (leather) ball, it compresses when pressure is applied on it. When the pressure is released it takes it original shape. In short, it acts like a spring (e.g. A motor cycle shock absorber). So what happens when a batsman has a squash ball in the palm of his bottom hand? When a batsman swings the bat until it hits the ball, there is pressure on his bottom hand. This pressure compresses the squash ball similar to spring. Just after the ball hits the bat (ball still touching the bat) this pressure starts to relax while the bat is moving forward. At the same time the energy stored in the squash ball releases its energy in the form of kinetic energy. The result is that the bat moves faster than normal (without a squash ball in the glove). As a result, the release speed of the cricket ball becomes faster resulting in the ball traveling further before hitting the ground…………the downside is because the bat travels faster than normal the batsman might lose control of the bat. This happened once in the Adam Gilchrist innings when the bat slipped out of his hands and fell behind the wickets………in brief Gilchrist’s use of the squash ball allowed him to hit the ball further in the field.” Some or most of Gilchrist’s sixes simply soared out of the playing area and well into the stands.”
Did Gilchrist nor his captain submit for the umpires’ scrutiny the squash ball wedged inside the batsman’s left glove, in which event could the offending ball have passed muster? Most certainly not again.
The final question is: If the practice of having a part of a squash inside a batsman’s glove was so successful why hasn’t this practice not used anymore? Or put another way, if a Sanath Jayasuriya, Kumar Sangakkara or a Shahid Afridi used this ploy what would have been the outcome by the ICC?