Is Honesty and Integrity still relevant in cricket?

First topic message reminder :

It seems winning by any means, even cheating and manipulating controversial and bizarre "review" decisions, reliance on technologies far less reliable than they are sold as and the hallucination of review umpires is now preferred to honest victory.

Is is sad or inevitable?

What the hell are you on about?

Im not referring to the current match, if thats what you meant

Oh just leave me be. I'm awfully tired you know.

No issues Duty.

This is really a question that could be extended to all top level sport (especially the day after 2 of the top 100m sprinters have failed drugs tests). By comparison with most, cricket doesn't do too badly, but there are issues with players willing to bend the rules and conventions of the game in the hope of gaining an advantage:

Not walking
Over-aggressive appealing
Sledging of opponents
Intimidatory bowling
Occasional blatant cheating (such as claiming catches you know to have been dropped).

The situation is pretty much the same as in rugby union - people, whether players, media or the public, pay lip service to the idea of resepct for the officials, but the game is played in a way as to maximise your chances of winning by playing to what the official will allow (or what you can get away with unseen by the ref).

It's not as bad as football, where blatant attempts to con the ref seem to be an inherent part of the game, as does harrasment of the officials, or as some of the more purely athletic sports (track and field, cycling, swimming) where you almost can't trust anyone winning an event to be doing so without perfromance enhancing drugs.

In a perfect world, cricket would return to the mythical days of players being honest and walking - the problem is that these probably never existed. As TMS said the other day, W G Grace was a notorious cheat, including the case wehre he didn't accept being given out and commenting to the umpire that the spectators had come to see him bat, not the umpire make decisions.

Isn't there also a story of Fred Truman on an Aussie tour bowling to some hapless batsman: first ball feathered to the keeper and given not out. Second ball plumb LBW, again the umpire said not out. Third ball removed middle stump, with Fred turning to the umpire and saying 'nearly got him that time'...

I think sometimes we romanticise the past and think that the players were not as competetive, but in truth some of these issues go back as far as competetive sport. The main thing to ensure is that other sports do not descend the slippery slope quite as far as top level football has. It would be good though to see Test players at least trusting their opponents word on issues like whether catches carried and whether a ball went for 4 or 6.

If you arent a walker, you better not ask a fielder if it carried

Yeah the honesty and integrity of cricket is nothing like the "good old days" like when the Aussie captain ordered his brother to bowl underarm to stop New Zealand being potentially able to hit a match winning six.

Oh, the good old days

Hibbz wrote:Yeah the honesty and integrity of cricket is nothing like the "good old days" like when the Aussie captain ordered his brother to bowl underarm to stop New Zealand being potentially able to hit a match winning six.

technically would have been a match-tieing six.

MFC, pedant extraordinaire

kingraf wrote:There is nothing in the rules which compells a fielder to tell the umpire he dropped it. He just cant tell the umpire he caught it when he didnt. Ramdin was banned because Chris Broad (who in fairness, Ive always thought was a pretty good match ref), decided that what Ramdin did, while not against the rules, was against the spirit of the game... Now turn about has come... will it be fair play?

The difference is that Haddin wasn't out.

GloriousEmpire wrote:

kingraf wrote:There is nothing in the rules which compells a fielder to tell the umpire he dropped it. He just cant tell the umpire he caught it when he didnt. Ramdin was banned because Chris Broad (who in fairness, Ive always thought was a pretty good match ref), decided that what Ramdin did, while not against the rules, was against the spirit of the game... Now turn about has come... will it be fair play?

The difference is that Haddin wasn't out.

Good lord, do you not know the rules of cricket? Even Haddin knew it was out when England reviewed judging by his face.

Don't, Duty. That was baited more obviously than a mousetrap from Tom and Kerry

Yes but I couldn't resist a little nibble at that!

What is integrity in the game? The umpires made a mistake that made a 140 (circa) run swing in the game, and then when they make another mistake, perhaps a 30-40 run swing the other way, people want players to honour the game by walking? Only a lunatic would support that kind of logic. And when is walking ok, and when is it not? A feather or light nick means it's ok to stand your ground, and a thick to clunky edge means you must walk. Fabulous ethics, which will make the game much more........er.......much more.........? I dunno, much more something or other, but I'm not sure what.

KP_fan wrote:I do not like Stuart Broad because I have following impressions:

1)he is a show pony
2)not as talented an all conditions bowler as hyped to be
3) not honest....the types in this world who feel it's OK to break laws if you cannot be legally caught... OR the type who believe I have backer in high offices who will help me get out even when breaking the laws

for the same reasons except No.2 I do not like Graeme Swann also

I will igbore number 3 as that is just silly (ie Papa Broad is noty allowed to sit in judgement on his son, and if you have ever seen the relationship between them he would love the chance to punish his son, but for Swann it is rather silly) but how can Swann be a show pony if number 2 does not apply?


Also bearing in mind your own rules, I suggest this would also mean that Kevin Pietersen is a show pony, so you should dislike him too.

Daddy Broad wouldn't be allowed to judge on a panel looking at his own son: there are usually specific measures in place to stop that from happening

ChequeredJersey wrote:Daddy Broad wouldn't be allowed to judge on a panel looking at his own son: there are usually specific measures in place to stop that from happening

But that gets in the way of another KPF rant.

I really need to find somewhere that actually discusses cricket, at least until September