That's Out - On a Limb

That’s Out – On a Limb.

    There are a few better forms of entertainment in cricket that a fierce debate about a point of principle, and what constitutes the mythical concept which is the ‘spirit of the game.’ We all forget that the game was first played in an organised, formal way as a means laying wagers – and there was plenty of ‘knobbling’ that went on. Or ‘fixing’ as it would be called today.

    Prejudice and bias of many natures were also deeply ingrained in the sport from the beginning and the notion that it was a ‘gentleman’s game’ came from the fact that the landed gentry of England sponsored the earliest teams – nothing to do the standard of behaviour on the field.

    Nobody can pinpoint with accuracy or confidence where the concept of playing the game in the ‘right spirit’ came from because it has always been played with as much feist and law-bending as it has with demureness and adherence.

    The ‘Mankad’ is a favourite camp-divider and, like so many ‘controversial’ moments in cricket history, the details are hazily recalled and misrepresented, more often than not. Vinoo Mankad was not just a very fine all-round cricketer but a genuine gentleman. When he ran out batsman Bill Brown at the non-striker’s end during India’s 1948 tour of Australia, it was after two friendly warnings about him backing up too far.

Vinoo Mankad

    Not only did Brown never complain, he admitted that he was attempting to gain an unfair advantage and that Mankad’s action was fair and legitimate. But the Australian media were having none of it and the petulant term ‘Mankading’ became synonymous with skullduggery.

    Wind the clock forward 74 years through enough scandals and controversies to match the wordage in any global encyclopedia, and the latest debate involves batters deciding to let someone else have a go which, with delightful irony, was – and still is – one of the ‘gentlemanly’ delights of social cricket. ‘Retire at 50’ has long been the mantra for professionals playing in Benefit Games with amateurs but now this tradition has crept, or leapt, into the professional game.

    There are a couple of recorded, mostly obscure and irrelevant instances of ‘retired out’ happening in T20 cricket before Ravichandran Ashwin did it playing for the Rajasthan Royals in the recently concluded IPL but since then they have started to become fashionable. There were two in one game just a week ago in the Vitality Blast in England.

    Birmingham Bears captain, Carlos Brathwaite, is notoriously poor against leg-spin. In a game reduced to just eight-overs each against against the Nottingham Outlaws, he scored just six runs in the first over bowled by (Durban born) leggie Calvin Harrison and missed three deliveries altogether. When Notts brought Harrison back for the final over with Brathwaite on strike, he retired. His team scored 18 off the final over and won by one run.

Carlos Brathwaite

    When the Outlaws needed three runs to win off the final ball, the clean-hitting but notoriously burly and sluggish Samit Patel was at the non-striker’s end. He retired with just one ball of the match remaining in the hope that a quicker runner might at least be able to return for a second run and force a Super Over.

    Notts and former England coach, Peter Moores, admitted that his team could have changed tactics one Brathwaite retired and given the final over to a different bowler but they stayed with Harrison and clearly it didn’t go well although, ironically, most of the runs were scored by (fellow South African) Chris Benjamin rather than Brathwaite’s replacement, Sam Hain. Moores said he had no problem with the tactic.

    A non-striker retiring with one ball of an innings remaining strikes some people as more cynical than a batsman retiring to avoid a negative match-up but, as the laws of the game currently stand, there is absolutely no difference. A batter may retire out whenever he or she chooses.

    But I suspect it will not become common-place. If there are more than just a handful of deliveries to remaining, the risk of giving up a wicket with no guarantee that the new batter will succeed, no matter what their record, will be too great for most teams to contemplate.

    The exception may be in times of rare top order success in which the openers reach 120 for the loss of no wicket in 15 overs with a benchful of big hitters – but even then it will require the magnanimous honesty displayed by Brathwaite or a ruthless captain to order an opener to return to the dugout.

    For many decades in limited overs cricket good bowlers and astute captains have manipulated games to give struggling batters a single off the last ball of the over and deny the dangerous batters as much strike as possible. But the retirement law has always been there, nothing has changed. The MCC said last week they would ‘discuss’ it at their next meeting but nothing is likely to change. How, for example, is an umpire to know with certainty whether a batter is retiring for tactical reasons or because they feeling unwell?  

    Cricket is a team game played by individuals but cricketers care about their records and performances so meaningful ‘retired outs’ – with four or more overs remaining -  will, I suspect, remain unusual. And anyway, as Bill Brown would have said: “What’s all the fuss anyway?”