Spirit of cricket or moral bullying?

The irony wouldn't have been lost on anyone. At the so-called home of cricket, Lord's, which houses the Marylebone Cricket Club and hosts the annual Spirit of Cricket lecture, a heated debate ensued about the perceived violation of the spirit of the game following the "controversial" dismissal of Jonny Bairstow, stumped by wicketkeeper Alex Carey for trudging out of his crease before the ball was declared dead on the concluding day of the second Ashes Test on Sunday.

The Lord's crowd went nuts, calling the Australians "cheats", and the Long Room audience comprising the 'exalted' MCC members, who would have been in high spirits by then, confronted and abused the Aussies as they made their way to the dressing room at the lunch interval. England eventually lost the match despite Ben Stokes' heroics, and given the margin of defeat - 43 runs - it must have been a bitter pill to swallow, for Bairstow could have made a difference to the outcome.

For Indian cricket followers, Bairstow's dismissal might have brought back memories of Ian Bell's run out in the 2011 series at Trent Bridge. Bell and Eoin Morgan, both of whom assumed the latter's flick off the last ball before tea had gone for four, began their walk towards the dressing room only to realise that the ball had been stopped inside the ropes by Praveen Kumar. After a comical save, Praveen relayed the ball to Abhinav Mukund, who promptly removed the bails. Replays confirmed the ball had been stopped cleanly and Bell was adjudged run out. The Indians walked out at the tea break to loud, constant jeers by the home crowd.

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During the break, England's skipper-coach duo of Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower respectively made a quick dash to the Indian change room and convinced the Indian team management to withdraw the appeal. Though India lost the match, this particular call wouldn't have made any difference to the outcome as Bell, who was batting on 137 when declared out, added 22 more before being dismissed. But it did expose India's soft underbelly at that time. Michael Vaughan, who had few nice things to say about India during that series as a TV pundit, indicated that the visitors may have buckled under pressure.

The Law (20.1.2) on dead ball, which Bairstow apparently thought it was after ducking under a Cameron Green bouncer, states that "the ball shall be considered dead when it is clear to the bowler's end umpire that the fielding side and both batters at the wicket have ceased to regard it as in play."

As subjective as the rule may appear, it's clear from the video footage that only Bairstow thought the ball was dead. More so, the decision was arrived at after it was referred to the TV umpire who, after repeated replays from different angles, flashed "out" on the big screen.

Once the third umpire gives his decision after a careful examination of evidence available at his disposal, there should be no room for morality. Of course, you can debate the umpire's interpretation of dead ball, just like how Mitchell Starc's catch of Ben Duckett had been the previous evening, but to suggest it was unfair cricket is stretching the argument.

Spirit of cricket is nothing but moral bullying by those who don't always want to play by the rules. India, who had quite a few senior statesmen in the dressing room in 2011, decided to withdraw their appeal, though it must be said that they had the luxury of 20 minutes to do so. Australia, true to their character, stood by their decision but at the same time exposed their duplicity over run-outs at the non-striker's end by the bowler.

Aussie skipper Pat Cummins, who stoically defended his team's stand in the face of booing fans and hostile questioning by the English media, had last year refused to take a stand on a bowler running out the non-striker for backing up too far. How different was Bairstow's dismissal then? If anything, the English batter wasn't even attempting to steal a single as opposed to a non-striker leaving the crease before the ball is delivered. When an inch makes a difference between a single and a run-out, a batsman's act of stealing anything more should be considered cheating, but Cummins was reducing the bowler's action to "waste of energy". On Sunday, however, he was elevating Bairstow's dismissal to "fair play".

Spirit of cricket is a convenient tool to invoke, depending on which side of the fence one is on.

Somewhere in the Caribbean, a visiting Indian Test cricketer must have had a quiet chuckle with a sense of vindication while watching the proceedings. R Ashwin, who has been widely pilloried in the west for repeatedly running out non-strikers leaving the crease early, didn't go into the binary of the debate. True to his long-held belief, he praised the ‘game awareness’ of the wicketkeeper in his tweet.

It's time the subjective spirit of cricket is superseded by the laws of the game, largely objective and open to interpretation just on the odd occasion. Like Ashwin has done, other cricketers too must take the responsibility of adhering to the rules, nothing more or less, so that such unsavoury reactions aren’t reprised.