Foot Fault

I didn't see the controversial end to the India/Sri Lanka match at Dambulla on Monday night. Since then, however, I wouldn't have been able to get away if I wanted to. So great is the outrage among followers of Indian cricket that I'm absolutely sick of the sight of Virender Sehwag hitting a Suraj Randiv front-foot no-ball for six to finish the 170-run chase in a controversy that has now enveloped Kumar Sangakkara and Tillakaratne Dilshan as well.

For what it's worth, I don't think there's anything wrong with the rules of cricket regarding the end of a match. In a completed incident, the current process of run accreditation correctly recognises the primacy of a default such as a wide or a no-ball because such a default goes to the root of the incident, rendering it invalid ab initio. Today's Times quotes the MCC's Neil Priscott, who says:

"...with one run required to win, if Sehwag had been stumped off a wide ball, he would have been given not out since the match is over with the wide being called. The imposition of a penalty run in this case is instant. It doesn't matter what happens next." (italics mine)

However, contrary to what Mr. Priscott says, it is perhaps what happened next that caused the controversy. One, umpire Asad Rauf signalled a six knowing fully well (I hope) that, with one run required, the match was over at the very instant that the no-ball occurred. Two, the stump microphone at Sehwag's end caught Sangakkara saying in Sinhalese, "he's one short of a hundred": a clever statement which has the advantage of being suggestive without being damning. Three, and perhaps most damningly, the side-on cameras caught Randiv overstepping by a huge way: a not-so-clever act which convinced even those willing to believe that Sangakkara's statement was no more than back-chat that the no-ball was intentional.

There is no question that the rules (I've always found calling them 'laws' rather fanciful) do not and cannot judge intention in this situation. Whether they should is a question that must, if answered in the affirmative, satisfy at least two questions. One, what is the basis for reversing the penalty runs rationale for the exclusive purpose of game-winning runs by crediting the batsman with runs that, if they occur at any other point in the game, are meant to be not so much a benefit for the batsman as a docking for the bowler? Two, what would you do if the penalty is intentional [inasmuch as it coincides with and supplies the last run(s) required to finish the match] but is done subtly enough for no one to suspect any intention?

The answer to the first question is always going to be a frowning reconciliation largely because the original rationale is, in essence, a compromise as well. If there was some way of penalising bowlers for erratic line and length that did not involve advantaging the batsmen, then I have a feeling that the MCC would have thought of it by now. However, the choice that has been made ensures that the penalty on the bowler and the largesse to the batting side are reflexive perhaps because of the insufficiency of any other form of punishment [other punishments, of course, do exist - suspending the bowler from bowling for the duration of the innings, for example - but these are rightly reserved for greater offences such as running on the pitch in the follow-through, bowling beamers (interestingly, whether intentional or not) and so on].

However, it is the second question that is infinitely more troublesome, not just because it enables a fairly harsh assessment to be made on the basis of what a young bowler may well have thought, in the moment, to be the cricketing equivalent of a harmless white lie. Indeed, the trouble lies in evaluating the proposed solution of assuming intention (thus reversing the burden of proof) and the license it would give for viewers to call an honest bowler a cheat just because he bowled a wide or a no-ball with the match nearing its end (or, as Indian fans are now calling it, a batsman deserving a hundred). The other possibility - Randiv denying Sehwag a hundred by concealing the no-ball to make it seem unintentional (or, better, a fast bowler going millimetres rather than inches over the bowling crease) is something that would either not be detected or would qualify itself for the "believable accident" category.

And, at the end of the day, that's what's bothering us about this. That the intention was clear but the execution was so hopelessly conspicuous that no condonation was ever possible. In most such cases, if the intention is there, then the bowler, however new to international cricket, is easily capable of making it appear accidental. But, much like Michael Schumacher's ill-judged lunge down Jacques Villeneuve's Williams past Dry Sack corner at Jerez in the 1997 F1 World Championship decider, the panic of a rushed execution (and, very possibly, a rushed debate with his own conscience while he was ambling in to bowl that last ball) produced an error big enough for the world to see, see again and again, judge and call a foul.

Such execution is not always rushed. Indeed, there is a growing mountain of evidence to suggest that Sri Lanka have done this to Indian batsmen at least twice before: Sourav Ganguly being left 98* with India chasing in the fourth innings of a Test at Kandy in 2001 and, more recently, to Sachin Tendulkar in a one-day match (described in hilarious detail by my good friend Varun Rajiv here). However, it is impossible to talk of punishment for something like this because, like I've already said, Randiv might not have executed it well, but others (like Lasith Malinga in the Tendulkar case) may well do. Essentially, this is one of those heat of the moment situations and, go ask Sangakkara or Randiv or Dilshan (if he is, indeed, the one who pushed Randiv to do it) behind the scenes with no cameras and they'll tell you that if there was a chance of getting away with it without getting caught then, in the heat of the moment, they'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Further, if we pursue the punishment-for-arranging-results argument to its logical conclusion, (I know this isn't the most obvious instance but) shouldn't Javagal Srinath have been similarly censured for bowling ball after ball far outside off stump at Waqar Younis so as to enable Anil Kumble to get Wasim Akram out at the other end and so complete his extraordinary 10 for 74 at the Feroz Shah Kotla in 1999? If 'not trying' is an allegation worthy of punishment, then call off the majority of 50 over matches halfway and suspend the team that's losing (or call off any 50 over match involving Bangladesh or any non-Test playing nation!) for 'not trying'. Because, though they'll bound by contract not to admit it, losing hope in cricket is not hard to do.

The pettiness that has emerged as being ingrained in the Sri Lankan team in seeking to deny a batsman a hundred is a judgement that everyone will make, whether they want to or not. And that, I think, is punishment enough.