In Sydney Anil Kumble rehashed the old Bill Woodford quote about one side playing cricket.
Amongst the many things he was mentioning was Australia’s policy of claiming any catch where the ball ends up in someone’s hand.
This is the same man who appeals for wickets that on occasion he would know could not be out.
And I don’t blame him, so would I.
But why can bowlers appeal for wickets that they know are not out, and we just brush them off, and fielders can hold aloft dodgy catches and they are vilified like they just sodomized a queen.
Both players are appealing for wickets that they know are not out.
In the current test AB claimed a catch that had a bit of grass on it.
When South Africa batted, the English team appealed for an LBW for Amla that may not have hit a 7th stump.
The wicket keeper, even one as rubbish as Tim Ambrose, would have known one hundred percent it was not out.
The next day Monty appealed for an LBW where the ball hit the pad outside off and was spinning further away from off.
Monty may not have known it hit the batsman just outside the line, but he knew it was a orthodox ball, that was spinning away from the stumps, and could not have possibly hit the stumps.
No one calls him a cheat, no one bags him.
The games just goes on.
AB is booed and trashed.
Why?
Is there a difference between a fielding team appealing for a decision they know isn’t out, and a fielder doing the same?
Cricket is a game of appealing.
I wonder how many bowlers have never appealed for wickets they don't believe are out.
I'd say less than 10%, but how many of them are known as cheats?
If a fielder does it once in a career, they can be branded cheats forever.
Seems a bit odd, and remember this is a bowler writing this, one who has appealed for all sorts of things, and even didn't call back a batsman who was given out bowled, when the ball obviously rebounded off the keeper.
And please don’t say, but the fielder knows he didn’t catch it, where as the bowler is unsure, bowlers may think most of the time they appeal it’s out, but there are more than one an innings that they know aren’t out.