Murali's run out and the spirit of the game.

[honestbharani]

All that post tells me is that you are a kiwi hater. ALL teams do these things. Get over it

yeah and Kiwis have done it more consistently than India, SL, Windies, England, Zim, Bangladesh, Pakistan. No, wait, I am a kiwi hater, so I always say these things.



U know mate, if u actually argue ur case instead of trying to come up with stupid personal comments, we could actually debate an issue.

 

[honestbharani]

So now it's the umpire who is at fault?

Let me get this straight, the fault lies with NZ, the umpires and the rules. Make up your mind what you actually believe

NO, it is obvious where the fault lies. ME. What a big mistake it is to expect sportsmen to be SPORTING!!!!(?)

 

[honestbharani]

Whats wrong with Murali's batting? Don't tell me he's cheating with the bat too...

**Runs**

yep. It turns out that he is batting the exact same way everyone else is batting and therefore, HE IS CHEATING.

 

[adharcric]

Don't waste your time hb. Far too much rubbish in this thread.

 

[honestbharani]

Just saw this and thought I should post it. This guy has pretty much said what I've been saying

http://www.ashburtonguardian.co.nz/index.asp?articleid=8484

Sportsthought - The (PC) crowd goes wild

By Matt Richens
Can the PC brigade please leave sport alone?
Go away. Don’t come back.
I cannot believe the comments I’ve heard and read about big bad Brendon McCullum running out poor wee Muttiah Muralitharan in the first test at Jade Stadium on Saturday.
It is a sport and as one of our great dreadlocked sport stars once said, “It’s not tiddlywinks”.
It was a TEST match, they aren’t supposed to be easy. They are a competition between two countries with winning as the sole objective.
I bet Stephen Fleming’s team talk didn’t go, “Okay guys we would quite like to win this game but remember it’s about having fun, being gentlemen and Sri Lanka - New Zealand relations”.
If it had happened the other way, if the Sri Lankan wicket keeper, Prasanna Jayawardene, had run out Chris Martin in the same circumstances, the New Zealand public would have initially thought it unfair but would have said Chris Martin should know better.
It would have been comical and probably forgotten. Murali has played 200 first class games now, 109 tests and taken 664 test wickets.
He should have known better.
McCullum did the right thing. He’s a competitor. He saw a chance to get a wicket and he took it.
No one can honestly say that Murali hasn’t exploited rules of the game to get himself wickets, and when he retires he will go down as at least the second most successful spinner ever.
Why do people always have to get on the sportsmanship bandwagon?
It drives me insane when people go on about the spirit of the game, participation is the key, sport should just be about having fun and scores shouldn’t be kept.
Crap! Sport is about competition. It’s about winning. Sure, you’re not not going to win every game but the idea is to try and you do what you can to do it.
Richie McCaw pushes the rules to the extreme and he is a national hero. He does what he can, to the limit of the law, to help his team win.
Greg Ford of the Sunday Star Times said this incident would stop him watching test cricket again and it was a disgrace.
How much worse is it then appealing every time the ball touches a kiwi batsmen’s pads?
Is it worse than the personal attacks that go on under the heading of sledging and chirping? No. It’s is part of the game.
Murali knows the rules and is an idiot for walking out of his crease. I’m just glad for Kumar Sangakkara that he got his hundred and Murali didn’t get even more carried away by the situation and hug him before completing the first run.
He’d never admit it, but Murali knows he mucked up.
He’s been around the traps long enough to know what he can and cannot do and he knows if New Zealand, and any other team for that matter, have a chance to get him out they will take it gladly.
As for the people I’ve heard comparing it to the Chapple brothers’ under-arm disgrace, it has one similarity. The Australians did everything they could, within the rules, to win that game.
However, the rule was so obviously wrong that it was changed immediately. This rule of live ball dead ball will not change just because Murali had a brain explosion.
Commentator Peter Sharp summed it up quite well when he said Murali reminded him of a “dark Rowan Atkinson”. He was falling over, backing away, playing shots that can be described unorthodox at best.
The McCullum run out made no difference to the outcome of the game but had added spice to a nothing series. The only exciting thing about the games is that we are actually playing test cricket.
There are so many ODI’s being played that the occasional interlude of real cricket is great. If Mr Ford doesn’t want to watch test cricket any more he is only joining the long list of people who don’t want to spend time watching the purist’s version of the game.
It is a shame we can’t attract the crowds like the Australians can because to watch the party atmosphere looks like a great way to spend a day.
But the second test at the Basin Reserve starting on Friday will still only attract a crowd of mainly retired men and the school children lucky enough to have cricket loving teachers.
Hopefully those children watching will take away the message that to play competitive sport is to try and win. Not cheat, but do what you can to beat your opponents.
These guys are professionals and play their sport to win.
December 13 2006

now, let me see. Why is this guy who wrote the article so sure that THIS is not a rule that deserves changing. Why can't the rule of run out be modified so that you can only run a batsman out when he is attempting a run?


You can't hit an under arm ball for six. So it was abolished. You shouldn't be run out if you aren't attempting a run. Why shouldn't this be abolished? Is i because this one actually helped NZ than harmed them in a cricket match??????

 

[cameeel]

now, let me see. Why is this guy who wrote the article so sure that THIS is not a rule that deserves changing. Why can't the rule of run out be modified so that you can only run a batsman out when he is attempting a run?

Stupid idea, and will never happen. It's far too impractical to expect an umpire to accurately judge what the player's intentions were re. a run. Look what happened when an umpire did try to make an assertion outside of an LBW.

 

[Ikki]

Look, that ball that Cullinan handled was never even going anywhere near the stumps. Had he did what he did a few seconds later, the appeal would have been laughable at best, because the ball would have been dead by then. Sure, it was stupid of Cullinan to touch the ball just like it was stupid of Murali to dash off to congratulate his mate when the ball was in play. But surely, it is not too much to ask the opposing captains to take into consideration the intent of the players before appealing for such dismissals. The reason the handled ball dismissal came in was so that players wont be able to throw away balls that are rolling on track to hit the stumps. Similarly, the run out dismissal is when a run is being attempted. I think maybe we really shouldn't expect too much sportsmanship these days, as a lot of guys here have pointed out.

The better way to go about this would be by perhaps giving the umpire the power to interpret these laws. Like with Cullinan, he could say "Look, he was just picking up the ball that would have never gone on to hit the stumps and throwing it back to the keeper. So NOT OUT." And in the same way, with Murali, he could say "He is not going for a run, so NOT OUT." Because it is quite that most teams are not willing to play sportingly these days.

Then your problem with this should have nothing to do with the NZ side because no law of the game should be upto the discretion of the opposing side. It shouldn't be in the hands of the Kiwi's to decide whether or not to get Murali out when they can - because they SHOULD be trying to get him out.

It is the fault of the umpire to decipher the situation. I am not saying this is all great and I 'don't see where the problem is'. I am saying that these kinds of gestures (being 'courteous') is not really a reason not to get someone out - especially considering these were all done legally. Cullinan made a mistake, it was a shame to get out that way, but it was a mistake that he paid for.

These things were in the rules, they weren't made up on the spot. So the real debate is in regards to the effectiveness of the law rather than the NZ players getting him out.

In the end Murali knew he shouldn't have been out of his crease and Cullinan knew there are times when you shouldn't pick up the ball. Unfortunately, they lapsed their concentration in that moment and got out. Finished.

 

[_Ed_]

That article raises a good point though - if it had been Chris Martin who had got out that way, I'd find it the funniest thing I'd seen on a cricket field since Mark Richardson's cramp incident, and it would be something Martin himself would never live down rather than something that resulted in the Sri Lankans being labelled bad sports.

Maybe that's just the way I view the game though, maybe some of the NZ public would be unhappy with it - but I doubt it considering Martin's cult status with the bat.

 

[archie mac]

No problem

I agree, sponsors would prefer good sportsmanship and yes, you are right about Warne.

Look, it's great if players can show sportsmanship. However, my point is that given the amount of money involved in elite cricket these days, it shouldn't be expected. And that applies to Murali's runout. He was stupid enough to go wandering out of his crease when the ball was still live. McCullum did what any professional keeper should do and whipped off the bails. And Fleming did what any professional captain should do and celebrated the wicket. I would expect the same from Ponting. Now, you guys don't know me very well here but over at the Colosseum they are sick and tired of my criticisms of Ponting's captaincy :P

I think we are going around in circles now

Not a big fan of Ponting the captain but Ponting the batsman is a different story. It should also be remembered that he is a Kangas boy and as such he is a great man

 

[honestbharani]

Then your problem with this should have nothing to do with the NZ side because no law of the game should be upto the discretion of the opposing side. It shouldn't be in the hands of the Kiwi's to decide whether or not to get Murali out when they can - because they SHOULD be trying to get him out.

It is the fault of the umpire to decipher the situation. I am not saying this is all great and I 'don't see where the problem is'. I am saying that these kinds of gestures (being 'courteous') is not really a reason not to get someone out - especially considering these were all done legally. Cullinan made a mistake, it was a shame to get out that way, but it was a mistake that he paid for.

These things were in the rules, they weren't made up on the spot. So the real debate is in regards to the effectiveness of the law rather than the NZ players getting him out.

In the end Murali knew he shouldn't have been out of his crease and Cullinan knew there are times when you shouldn't pick up the ball. Unfortunately, they lapsed their concentration in that moment and got out. Finished.

Look, I am not blaming New Zealand for not being sporting in this instance. It was their call. As I already said in one of my previous posts, it is just that they had the chance to do the sporting thing and they didn't. Nothing wrong with what they did, except that it was unsporting, as in they could have withdrawn the appeal and did the sporting thing and they didn't. But that is all semantics. As I ve said earlier, New Zealand have been one of the more aggressive sides in the world and def. not one of the most sporting in the past 4 or 5 years and therefore, I really didn't expect them to act any differently.

 

[Langeveldt]

yep. It turns out that he is batting the exact same way everyone else is batting and therefore, HE IS CHEATING.

Oh dear.. Unaware of what a joke is?

 

[legglancer12]

Fleming reignites Murali dismissal debate

The controversy surrounding Muttiah Muralitharan's run-out in the first Test at Christchurch has been reignited by Stephen Fleming, New Zealand's captain, on the eve of the second Test at Wellington. Two days after Sri Lanka said they had put the issue behind them - while maintaining the run out was bad sportsmanship - Fleming accused the tourists of taking the gloss off New Zealand's five-wicket victory.

"We won't necessarily move on," he told reporters. "It's a mistake by them and they covered it up by taking the moral high ground. We won a good Test match and it's been diluted by that situation. We're very proud of any Test win we get and to have that not mentioned or talked about is annoying."

Mahela Jayawardene, Fleming's opposite number, was surprised that the issue had been brought up again but stood by his original opinion. "I've played enough cricket to know that was unsportsmanlike," he said. "It's over for us now. If Stephen wants to talk about it then he obviously has something in his mind which is bothering him."

New Zealand's batting has been an issue of concern - as Fleming pointed out, "We weren't convincing winners [in Christchurch], there's still enough areas of concern to have us twitchy going into this game," - and the major threat remains Muralitharan.

New Zealand's top spinner, meanwhile, has voiced his opinion on the seam-friendly pitches used both at Christchurch and Wellington. "It's disappointing, it makes it tough being a spin bowler in this country," Daniel Vettori told stuff.co.nz. "It makes it difficult growing up aspiring to be a spin bowler. What do you have to look forward to? You want wickets that everyone can play a role in. I haven't seen those for an extended period of time. In terms of the wickets we play on and the conditions, you get so much more done with fast bowling and medium pace."

Vettori admitted that playing a supporting role on such pitches was difficult. "It's a little bit depressing sometimes not actually bowling," he said. "I'm so used to contributing in most games I play that when you stand out in the field and not do much it makes it tough."

In Vettori's view, such pitches could precipitate a downslide in New Zealand's fortunes overseas."If we want to produce teams to win test matches we need to keep encouraging spinners to come through the system because otherwise we're never going to consistently win overseas," he said. "The only teams that win in India and Pakistan, and even Australia, are teams with good spin bowlers. If you don't have one of those you're not going to compete at Test-match level."

Teams (from): New Zealand: Stephen Fleming (capt), Craig Cumming, Jamie How, Mathew Sinclair, Nathan Astle, Jacob Oram, Brendon McCullum (wk), Daniel Vettori, James Franklin, Shane Bond, Chris Martin, Iain O'Brien (one to be omitted).

Sri Lanka: Mahela Jayawardene (capt), Sanath Jayasuriya, Upul Tharanga, Kumar Sangakkara, Tillekaratane Dilshan, Chamara Kapugedera, Chamara Silva, Prasanna Jayawardene (wk), Farveez Maharoof, Chaminda Vaas, Lasith Malinga, Dilhara Fernando, Akalanka Ganegama, Muttiah Muralitharan (three to be omitted).

© Cricinfo

 

[Dasa]

Oh dear.. Unaware of what a joke is?

Probably just tired of seeing the same old comments...whether it's a joke or not, it gets tiresome especially when it's based on a falsehood.

 

[JF.]

The better way to go about this would be by perhaps giving the umpire the power to interpret these laws. Like with Cullinan, he could say "Look, he was just picking up the ball that would have never gone on to hit the stumps and throwing it back to the keeper. So NOT OUT." And in the same way, with Murali, he could say "He is not going for a run, so NOT OUT." Because it is quite that most teams are not willing to play sportingly these days.

Well given that the umps don't seem to be interpreting the way you think they should be, perhaps what you are actually advocating is a change in the rules? Give me a break. If a guy goes wandering out of his crease while the ball is still live - esp a test veteran - then he DESERVES to be run out.

Stop making it sound like it's the fielding teams fault/s. If these guys didn't make these errors in the first place, there wouldn't be a problem.

 

[JF.]

yeah and Kiwis have done it more consistently than India, SL, Windies, England, Zim, Bangladesh, Pakistan. No, wait, I am a kiwi hater, so I always say these things.



U know mate, if u actually argue ur case instead of trying to come up with stupid personal comments, we could actually debate an issue.

I've given plenty of good debate here - in fact I've ripped you apart because you keep changing your stance. You're not even sure what you're arguing!

And as far as your assertion about the Kiwis... where are these examples? I'm more inclined to say it's the Pakis who "do it more consistently". So why are you singling out the kiwis?

 

[JF.]

I think we are going around in circles now

Not a big fan of Ponting the captain but Ponting the batsman is a different story. It should also be remembered that he is a Kangas boy and as such he is a great man

Are we? I'm not sure ... but whatever

Agree with you on Ponting. I get a LOT of crap thrown at me at another forum because I'm an Aussie who doesn't rate his captaincy! But he is almost without peer as a batsman.

Kangas? Get knotted! I'm a Magpie :P

 

[JF.]

Look, I am not blaming New Zealand for not being sporting in this instance. It was their call. As I already said in one of my previous posts, it is just that they had the chance to do the sporting thing and they didn't. Nothing wrong with what they did, except that it was unsporting, as in they could have withdrawn the appeal and did the sporting thing and they didn't. But that is all semantics. As I ve said earlier, New Zealand have been one of the more aggressive sides in the world and def. not one of the most sporting in the past 4 or 5 years and therefore, I really didn't expect them to act any differently.

Yes you are! Wtf?

"I am not blaming NZ for not being sporting... but they had the chance to do the sporting thing and they didn't" <<<<<< If you aren't blaming NZ, what is that???



I think you should quit while you're.... behind?

 

[silentstriker]

Such a big deal over such a small incident.

 

[Dick Rockett]

Finally someone noticed!

 

[JF.]

LOL when Murali was batting with Sanga earlier on I was thinking FFS DON'T wander out of your crease

I don't want to go through this all over again