Needless controversy

First it was Pakistani legend, Inzamam-Ul- Haq, casting aspersions on Arshdeep’s ability to reverse swing the ball in the 15th over, which as per him, wouldn’t be possible without ball tampering. Now, there’s another controversy regarding Surya’s extraordinary effort in completing that spectacle of a catch to dismiss David Miller in the last over. As per some reports, the boundary line had shown movement during the process.

My take on both the above controversies is that transparency in the game of cricket, due to multiple cameras, drones, stump vision camera, third umpire review has reached unprecedented heights, mainly thanks to technology, but also the game administration’s endeavour to minimise human errors. Umpires, who are humans after all, did use to give benefit of doubt to a team, especially in the matters of run outs, faint edges getting caught behind by keeper or slips, LBW decisions, interpretation of wide ball et al, but the modern technology and rules of the game have eliminated all these aberrations. And in both the above matters, when ground umpires, third umpire as well as other game officials have not detected any anomaly, who are these rabble rousers, irrespective of their past achievements, to cry for spilt milk. We, the cricket lovers, have always accepted Umpire’s decision as final with utmost grace.

I have a slightly different take on the controversy relating to the game of cricket. While I don’t deny practices such as betting (which can be legalised as anything legal at least fetches revenue to coffers) and occasional instance of a bookie approaching one or more players, this general tendency of treating everything as fixed, manipulated and staged is nothing more than oversimplification of a complex situation and a very banal thought. The devotion, dedication, emotion and effort by players can’t be faked! Let’s stop all this junk and start enjoying the game in its purity.