I just turned on the New Zealand versus England cricket in time to see the collision between bowler and batsman and the run out of the New Zealand player as a result.
In the spirit of cricket England should not have appealed for the run out.
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June 25, 2008
Cricket, in common with many other sports these days, ceased to be a sport when large sums of money came into the game. Cricket is becoming big business. With big business comes branding. Big business wants it's products or brand to be associated with success. No one likes a loser.
Sport was what it was; sport, however winning, is now all that matters. The worst example is football, we see play acting on the field, we see coaches sacked for finishing second. The attitude is win at any cost, never mind sporting values.
Cricket will go the same way as more and more money goes into the game and so called "professionalism" creeps in.
Reply: You may be right, but maybe people should remember it is just a game. I am glad Collingwood apologised.
June 26, 2008
In the spirit of cricket? Nonsense. This has happened before. I have SEEN it happen. The batsman has to keep out of the way of the bowler in these situations. He, after all, should be looking weher he is ging. Unless Sidebotham deliberately obstructed the batsman, which he clearly did not, then the fellow is out. But I agree it is just as well that New Zealand won in the end. Not that I would have said that if it had been the South Africans or (perish the thoyught) the Australians. But then I am of the opinion that Douglas Jardine was right over Bodyline.
Reply: If you watch the replay you will see that the batsman was running in the correct direction and did try to evade the hurtling bowler.
June 26, 2008
We've seen legal but unsporting behaviour before on many occasions.
Underarm bowling in the final over of that 1981 ODI springs to mind and it was subsequently banned as not being "in the spirit of the game".
Sledging is possibly the nastiest part of the game right now.
I fear that we are slipping down the road which professional football has taken where even being a yard away from an opponent in the penalty box results in a dive.
Paul Collingwood acted in the heat of the moment and can be forgiven for that part but I'm delighted that he has slowed the decline of standards by apologising. Well done Paul.
June 26, 2008
I gather that Collingwood did apologise but not until he had lost the game and there was no reason not to. Do you think he would have admitted he made a mistake had England won the game? Apologising after the fact is easy, doing it when it really matters is something else, which I am afraid is beyond most modern professional sportsmen.
Welcome to New, Modernised Britain.
June 26, 2008
When Lewis Hamilton crashes into Kimi Raikkonen they are both out – they cannot stop the race to let them back in.
When Zola Budd famously crashed out at an Olympics her race was over.
Downhill skiers often fall, and finish their race
Why are cricketers to be treated differently?
June 28, 2008
I shudder to think what would happen were the same incident to occur in the £1m per player game. If Collingwood is still captain (and there's a good chance that he won't win his place back in the team when his ban ends, given his recent lacklustre performances) I doubt if he'll give sportsmanship any more thought than he did this time.