If you’re reading this, you have probably come across it by accident. These are my thoughts arising from the Bairstow run out at Lord’s on July 2nd, 2023.
To recap, Bairstow ducked under a bouncer, tapped his bat on the ground behind the popping crease and then walked off down the wicket. Carey, the Australian wicket keeper, underarmed the ball at the stumps immediately after taking the ball and Bairstow was given out: run out.
That incident caused incandescent rage from both the spectators and the MCC members.
*****
First of all, the Aussies were not cheating when Bairstow was run out. It wasn’t gamesmanship either. Bairstow is a dozy idiot and, in a way, he got what he deserved.
However, in “the spirit of the game”, the appeal could have been revoked. There is precedent for that with England’s revocation of the runout appeal against Alvin Kallicharan after the last ball of the day’s play in Guyana in 1998.
Cheating in cricket in by no means unheard of and probably the worst cheat in cricket history was the man whose name is most closely linked to the game – the Englishman, Dr WG Grace.
In the Oval test of 1882, Grace was fielding close to the bat. Sammy Jones, the Australian batsman, blocked the ball and it dribbled to Grace. Grace picked it up and apparently threw it back to the bowler. The batsman straightened up and started 'farming' the pitch. As Jones walked out of his crease, Grace took the ball from where he had hidden it and threw down the stumps. Jones run out 0.
While Grace was playing, English coins had Queen Victoria on one side and Britannia on the other. The coin would be tossed and if Grace was particularly keen to win the toss, he'd call "The lady".
Charles Kortright played for Essex and once, when he bowled Grace knocking two stumps out of the ground, he said, "Are you leaving so soon Doctor? There's still one stump standing."
Grace was such a cheat that a number of Laws were rewritten to close loopholes which he exploited - such as the one which means you have to appeal at the time, not the next morning after you've had a word with the umpire about whether the last ball of the day should have been given out.
If that weren’t bad enough, he was accused by the Sydney Mail of betting on the matches he played in.
All that was more than 100 years ago. Modern cheating (I’m ignoring bodyline as that was gamesmanship and ungentlemanly conduct rather than cheating) began in 1946 with the Australians and Don Bradman.
In the first test at Brisbane, Bradman was caught by Ikin at second slip from a ball bowled by Voce for 28. No one appealed as it was so obviously out, and it was assumed that Bradman would walk off. But Bradman just stood there.
The fieldsmen stared incredulously as Bradman stood his ground and then Ikin appealed for a catch. The (Australian) umpire said, “Not out.
Bradman said afterwards that he had jammed the ball on to the ground and so it was a bump ball. Bradman was in a minority of two in his opinion and luckily for him, that minority included the umpire".
Bradman eventually scored 187. Keith Miller, the Australian all-rounder who was playing in the game, wrote, “That decision was subsequently admitted in nearly every quarter to have been erroneous.”
Bradman was 38 years old and suffering from fibrositis. He had been advised not to play by his doctor and a cheap dismissal would almost certainly have made him retire at the end of that game.
A similar incident occurred in the Second Test, though it might not have been seen as much of a problem if it had not followed so closely on the events of the first.
Bradman was on 22 when he appeared to snick another catch to Ikin, this time fielding at short leg. This time though, there may have been some cause for doubt. It was an appeal that could have gone either way. It went Bradman’s.
He went on to make 234, so in his first two innings he made 421 runs. If he’d been given out (by two Australian umpires) when he was actually given not out, he would have made only 50.
In the Fourth Test of that series at Adelaide, Cyril Washbrook was given out to Ray Lindwall to a ball that Don Tallon, the keeper scooped off the ground. Washbrook "stood there transfixed.” Even some of the Australian leg-side fielders expressed amazement.
Tallon was known for his impetuous appealing and Bradman asked him if he still wanted to appeal. Tallon said he did, and Bradman stood by the decision. It was later suggested that Tallon told Bradman that it was not a clean catch and Clif Cary (Australian cricket reporter) thought that if Bradman had gone into the matter further he would have recalled Washbrook.
Another Australian reporter Ray Robinson wrote "I believe nearby fieldsmen were impetuous in appealing as the wicket-keeper scooped up the ball, and that the hesitant umpire would have been wiser to have asked his square-leg colleague whether it carried to the gloves or was gathered on the half-volley".
Hammond tried to locate a press photograph of the ball touching the ground, but no photo was found. How convenient.
Jump forward now to 1981 and a one-day game between Australia and New Zealand. With one ball of the final over remaining in the match, New Zealand needed a six to tie the match. To ensure that New Zealand were unable to achieve this, the Australian captain, Greg Chappell, instructed his bowler (and younger brother) Trevor Chappell to deliver the last ball to the batsman underarm along the ground so that hitting a six was impossible.
Perfectly legal at the time and not cheating but hardly within the spirit of cricket.
In 2018, Steve Smith, Cameron Bancroft and David Warner were punished for their role in “Sandpapergate”. They were caught red-handed cheating in the series against South Africa by roughing up the ball with sandpaper.
The Australian cricket board sought to “draw a line” under the affair by conducting an “independent” inquiry, but as everyone knows, it was a sham.
James Erskine, David Warner’s manager, claimed that there were "far more" than three people involved in the Sandpaper saga.”
One of those people is Pat Cummins, the current Australian captain, who was a bowler on the day and must have known what was happening. He was aware of the cheating, said nothing and was later rewarded with the captaincy.
Erskine also said that some unnamed officials had given the go-ahead to players to tamper with the ball when Australia played South Africa in Hobart two years earlier in 2016.
Erskine has said that Warner could blow the lid on the whole affair. “When the truth comes out, everyone’s going to turn around and say, ‘well, why was David Warner picked upon?’ The truth will come out, let me tell you.”
As I wrote at the start, Bairstow was out at Lord’s, and Australia didn’t cheat. However, they could see that Bairstow was not seeking to gain an advantage and that he had touched in and may possibly have believed that the umpires were moving at the end of the over.
The Australia coach Andrew McDonald has admitted the whole thing was pre-meditated. They must have known what a furore it would cause but they didn’t care and did it anyway.
Finally, the views of a former Australian player and an English woman:
Justin Langer: “Cricket is not just about being good cricketers, but good people who play the right way”.
Victoria Coren Mitchell: “I think the intensity of this kind of controversy is tremendously helpful when it comes to maintaining the illusion that things like cricket matter at all.”
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