Ian Bell Run Out Saga : Indulging the Fool

There are times in our lives when we indulge fools in our spheres of influences. Be it at work or on social media platforms. More often than not, we end up regretting it in our most personal moments, though everyone else, especially the fools, can’t stop waxing eloquent about it. What Indian team did at Trent Bridge was an avuncular act of indulging the fool, and whatever name you might want to give it, the most abused and ridiculous sounding being ‘the spirit of the game’, that’s what it was. Dhoni, Fletcher and the senior members of the Indian team under the not-so-subtle cajoling from England team and their vociferously hostile supporters indulged Ian Bell’s foolishness. And as history has told us so many times, nobody becomes wiser by indulging fools.

Ian Bell dismissed

For a few mad moments, Bell thought his wonderful knock had bestowed upon him an authority to dictate how the world should operate and he decided that they all should enjoy a cup of Tea. Sorry mate, doesn’t work like that. Umpires decide when you have that well deserved cuppa, even if you have scored frigging thousand runs. That’s the rule of the game and you signed on to it. Let’s ask some simple but hard questions here. Did Indian fielders obstruct Bell from completing a run? No. Did the umpire signal a boundary? No. Did the umpires call it tea by removing the bells? No. Did Mukund and Dhoni have the right to appeal? Yes. Did the umpires have the right to accept the appeal and apply the rules? Yes. The situation couldn’t have been simpler. However, it was far from so. Incredibly, all the logic was discarded by everyone and the appeal was overturned. Ian Bell resumed his unquestionably sublime but legally completed innings, added fifty odd more runs in a partnership with Morgan, rubbed salt and mirchi on India’s wounds, and walked back to the dressing room acknowledging the cheers of an ignorant and bullying crowd. From today, the English, at least on the crowd front, have lost all moral grounds to criticize the public behavior in the subcontinent. The so-called knowledgeable Englishmen in the stands booed and jeered the Indian team when they should be doing that to their own batsman.

What is this bloody ‘spirit of cricket’ that everyone is saying has been spared the indignity of being violated by this legal appeal? Is there a document that states what it means? Is there a secret parchment written by Leonardo Da Vinci, or hidden archaically in some of his paintings that explain this abstract concept? I know I am sounding a bit pedantic here, but I believe there is no such thing. This spirit is more often than not invoked by people who believe their ignorance and foolishness should not only be pardoned but rewarded. I am totally amazed by the English commentators and press who are going on record saying that this selfless act by Dhoni has resulted in upholding the great holy spirit of the game. I hope, from now onwards, every inappropriate appeal by an English player will ensure proclamations of grievous injury to the spirit. If say, Stuart Broad tomorrow appeals for an obvious inside edge LBW, Strauss steps in and rescinds it. Then, dear English press, we will talk about the spirit. But I am sure that won’t happen. In fact, what we will have are casual assaults on integrity of VVS Laxman by the likes of Michael Vaughan.

Odysseus, when brutally questioned by Achilles about his dubious decision to side with the despotic Agamemnon had said ‘When you are a king, your choices are very limited’. Dhoni will be admired, as he should be. It is very easy for all of us to have an opinion on this matter, but he doesn’t have those privileges. In his heart, he knows he was right to appeal, when for the briefest of moments, he had thought of himself as merely a cricketer who was playing the game as it should be played – fair and within rules. Like Achilles. But for that ephemeral moment, he forgot that he was the king who had very little choices – much like Odysseus. And in this case it meant indulging the fool.