ICC Cricket World Cup-2019: When The Umpire Wanted Gayle Out!

Photo: espncricinfo.com 

The headline above is not an allegation, it’s only an observation based on hard facts. However, this observation reflects badly on the umpiring standards in the biggest cricket event of the world.  We had recently seen ludicrous umpiring errors in Indian Premiere League-2019. ICC Cricket World Cup can hardly be compared with the former, and we fervently hope that standards would improve as this was just the first week of the tournament.

It all happened in the 10^th match of the ICC Cricket World Cup-2019 at Trent Bridge, England between Australia and West Indies. Winning the toss West Indies put Australia into bat, reduced them to 79 for 5 thanks to fiery spells by Thomas and Cortrell that reminded us of the likes of Malcolm Marshall & Co of yore, and as was their wont, West Indies let go allowing the Aussies to amass 288. Still, it was not an impossible target, and West Indies seemed to be cruising nicely with Hope and Heitmyer going great guns. Again, as Caribbean old habits die hard, the batsmen snatched defeat from victory, preferring to go only for the big shots without any kind of pressure. And, they lost by a mere 15 runs. Now, back to our point of concern.

Only in the third over of the match Aussie pacer Starc appealed for a caught behind against Chris Gayle, and the umpire upheld it. Gayle was never known to have shown disrespect or mistrust in umpiring in his strikingly aggressive career, and never sulked after adverse decisions. Therefore, when he shook his head implying that there was no snick and asked for the DRS it was very believable and genuine. The review proved that the ball never touched the bat, and in fact, could have brushed against the off stump without dislodging the bails. Gayle won the DRS. In the same over Starc again appealed for an LBW, and the umpire promptly upheld it while this writer watching television live telecast could clearly see that the ball was veering away from the leg stump. Gayle raised his eyebrows in wonder and asked for the second DRS. The review showed how the ball was missing the leg stump by quite a big margin. Gayle won his second DRS and also opened up with his breathtaking shots. Perhaps, some people who mattered sulked.

The umpire and Starc combined all over again. The appeal was for an LBW with the umpire raising his finger immediately. This time Gayle looked a little bewildered, and asked for his third DRS. The review was not lost yet again, but since the ball was in line and seemed to have struck the top edge of the leg stump the umpire’s decision had to be upheld. And Gayle departed. He was allowed to score only 20 runs.

And then, the real explosion came. Later replays showed that the ball prior to the one that got Gayle out was a no ball by a big leap, but the same umpire never seemed to notice it. Therefore, the ball that got Gayle out finally was a free-hit ball where no batsman could ever get out.

The above observations do not intend to take away credit due to Starc who had a five-wicket haul thanks to consistent pace, line and length, and to Australian captain Finch who showed a thoroughly professional approach making West Indies play into their plans.

The other highlights of the first week, positively, included England, Bangladesh and India beating a beleaguered South Africa in their respective openers where mention must be made about Bangladesh’s aggression and the quality of both batting and bowling; West Indies routing Pakistan, and then Pakistan beating hot favourites England showing precision batting, bowling and fielding, and the fact that no mention by anybody was made as to why England offered batting opportunity to Pakistan on a platter, as the pitch was full of runs and the hosts were full of confidence; valiant Bangladesh losing in a tight match against New Zealand and Sri Lanka managing to register their first win over Afghanistan by a narrow margin.  

With the round-robin league in operation ICC Cricket World Cup-2019 promises to be a fierce battle between nations upholding their national pride and belief. Each one of the ten teams is capable of scripting history—one cannot even write off South Africa and Sri Lanka as yet. We only hope no cricketer suffers like Chris Gayle did in the exciting days of the tournament ahead. India has big matches coming up—against Australia on 9^th June, against New Zealand on 13^th June and the ultimate one against Pakistan on 16^th June.

Gold Crush!

He took a resolve not to submit the details as required or give in to the new pressure tactics. He considered this move totally unfounded, preposterous and unnecessary. Why should he or any other of his kind at all? How did it relate to the work they all were doing? He was not a broker or an agent or a dealer or a pedlar. He had been a simple honest straightforward employee eking out a living from his salary, didn’t matter at all if it was fat or lean. Whatever he did or didn’t was conditioned by his monthly salary, and he was not ready to share his kitchen details with anyone. Why at all? And what purpose would it serve to the party who wanted such details except for making wrong use of the information.

His company suddenly wanted all its employees to submit full property details including family holdings of gold and silver. While most of the employees accepted it as part of duty and were going ahead with the procedure he resisted vehemently publicly announcing his decision never to comply with this.

His stubborn resistance naturally led to suspicions among his colleagues. Did he somehow manage to have a secret hoarding of the precious metals from his or his wife’s side and therefore refusing to disclose, they thought. He also came to know of their suspicions, but didn’t give a damn, and instead tried to inspire them with noncompliance giving the reason as ‘unnecessary intrusions into the personal domain’. Some of them did agree, but didn’t have the courage to act upon it.

As it transpired the drive finally petered out for unknown reasons, and the company stopped pestering for strict compliance. He felt vindicated, but others said that finally good sense prevailed in the company management. Those who submitted were never asked anything about it.

As we found out later he had an entirely different reason for his refusal. He had such tiniest of possessions of the precious metals that he was ashamed of disclosing that in public. He was believed to have confided to his wife, “Only you and I know that we never hankered after gold or anything. We have next to nothing in our family possession, even you friends wouldn’t believe you if you tell them so. Now, isn’t it offensive to ask us to disclose? At least paupers like us should be spared the ignominy of having to advertise in public. Don’t you agree?”

IPL Vs ICC World Cup Cricket!

While most of the World Cup-2019 squads of various nations are having or are going to have training camps soon for the all-important event India continue to have just Indian Premiere League (IPL-2019). Well...

That Virat Kohli continued to captain Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) even after the most disgraceful proceedings as far as the team performances are concerned has obvious reason. Being a superlative cricketer that he is and also being Team India captain Virat had been the star attraction of the IPL-2019. Therefore, despite the upsetting losses he was still having most of the commercial time on the air along with some of his non-performers, and an appetizing element of suspense being maintained by the cricketing experts or the media or the spectators that he might stage a comeback for his franchise yet, and who knows..! For similar reasons in terms of money and glamour Indian cricketers just could not leave the IPL halfway while many of the other international cricketers had already left or were leaving for training or preparatory camps of their respective countries. A camp should ideally be one-month long, and most countries were following that in right earnest. However, the last match of IPL scheduled on 12^th May, 2019 Team India didn’t have even a fortnight to prepare with the ICC World Cup-2019 staring on 30^thMay, 2019 in England and Wales. Further, there had been no news so far if there was indeed going to be an Indian camp or not.

IPL has been an enigma in different ways. Many cricket experts and some sports journalists believed that competitive IPL was providing good enough match practice for the coming international tournament. This was a highly contentious issue. The format of T20 is entirely different with the bowlers not able to bowl more than 4 overs each, and batsmen desperately trying to hit sixes or fours with the little time available. How is it going to provide good practice to score as well as stick on the fast England pitches in the one-day international (ODI) or 50-over matches? Besides, stalwarts like Sourav Ganguly kept on making controversial statements intermixing T20 with the ODI format. Ganguly, going gaga over a match winning innings of Rishav Pant recently, said that this world cup was not the end of the road for him, there will more to follow in at least 15 years to come, adding to the astonishing hype created over the non-selection of Pant for the World Cup-2019. A few days later he said that the form of Virat Kohli in this IPL was no indication for the coming World Cup. Well, it was all of a matter of convenience to analyze IPL in the intended ways as was evident from such comments. The day or rather the night when RCB got finally knocked out of the tournament some media personnel were very quick to add that now Virat Kohli should concentrate only on preparing for the World Cup!

God forbid, the IPL could be the biggest stumbling block for the World Cup as far Team India’s performance in that event is concerned. Competitive club bonanza is no match for the international event where pride of nation is much more important than money and glitz. On the other hand if some players had benefited from the IPL they all belonged to rival teams. For example, Warner and Smith from Australia prospered very well just after coming back from serving a one-year ban for the ball-tampering scandal, good batting practice, and now the preparatory camp in addition; some of the Caribbean cricketers also benefited hugely from this tournament with a few of them making it to the World Club squad, and now going to have the training camp too. Only Indian cricketers had toiled maniacally on slow-flat domestic pitches with no road to exit, and now will be leaving for England without any preparation in terms of physical conditioning. And also, they would definitely be fated to face the superstars created by this IPL in rival teams in the coming international event.

Whichever way it goes, Team India is still favored hugely to lift the World Cup-2019, and we believe too in that positivity. If Virat had problems in IPL captaincy he will have Dhoni and Rohit on his side in the World Cup. However, we still lament the possible lack of any preparatory camp for India to land in England reactivated sans the IPL hangover. And then, this time the ICC World Cup will be fought on a round-robin basis with each of the 10 teams playing each other once, and the top four teams making it to the semi-final stage. This promises to be a saga of super cricketing rivalry with the first match taking place on 30^thMay, 2019. Happy cricketing times to all the lovers of this game.