CRICKET fans on the sub-continent have questioned Adam Gilchrist's match-winning innings in the World Cup final because he had a squash ball inside his batting glove.
I first came across with this question, on one of my blog posts about Gilly's batting glove signal. Then I saw, some one has raised the question on Yahoo Answers.
Most interesting and convincing analysis came from this post titled "How legal was Adam Gilchrist’s hidden ball?" (Of course the title is funny) Here the author refers to the laws of cricket and points..
"In other words, Law 3 (6) (c) (i) specifically prohibits a player from using equipment other than that permitted. And nowhere in cricket’s 42 laws is there a mention of a squash ball as a permitted item."
A very logical question raised by the Sri Lankan cricket fans is "What if Sanath Jayasuriya came with a squash ball hidden inside his glove and score a century? Will the Australian media and Cricket authorities keep silent?"
This question is very logical given the behavior of Australian media and the authorities, when it comes to matters like ball tampering charges against Sri Lanka on a ROCK hard pitch in Perth, and calling Murali for chucking.
I don't think even if Sanath came with a squash ball hidden inside his glove, he couldn't play such a brilliant innings as Gilly that day. There's no debate about the excellence in Gilly's innings. The only question is, whether it is legal to use Squash balls in cricket? How would you differentiate this from Hansi Cronje using a walky talky on the field? Why don't the law allows bowlers to use extra plasters to tighten their grip on ball?
So the topic is wide open. "Did Gilly Cheat? Was it legal to do that?" That's the question. No questioning about the brilliance in his innings. Have your say in the vote caster on the sidebar of this blog. We'll wait how the ICC and other authorities take on this matter.
2 comments:
Well, we have seen umpires remove sticking plasters or medical dressing that cover bowlers' fingers before they start bowling; because it gives extra bit of grip on the ball. It surely provides a significant advantage to a spin bowler. Therefore, it is not allowed.
This is also a similar situation. But unfortunately no one knew he had the ball under the glove until he himself showed it off.
And you can not even bring up "what if Sanath had a ball inside" type of arguments. It was not Sanath who had a problem with controlling his grip. As we can see from these reports Gilchrist was going through problems and unfortunately, his solution looks very illegal. He was using equipment that was not permitted in CRICKET.
Better ban batting inners too then...
If someone else had done that, I can tell you the Aussie's would've admired the ingenuity of a solution to a problem, just as we do with Gilchrist. Come on, he used it in every game except the South African game, get over it.
Post a Comment