The myth of the 'Spirit of Cricket'

'Walk' - you must be joking

Let's start with the thorny subject of batsmen 'walking' or not. The crucial moment in the Sydney Test match was when Australia were in trouble at 193-6 and Andrew Symonds, 30 not out, was palpably caught behind off Ishant Sharma.

Everyone on the field of play knew that Symonds had hit the ball - except for umpire Steve Bucknor.

Should Symonds have walked? Well the last 'Spirit of Cricket' lecturer the British commentator Christopher Martin-Jenkins thinks so - cricket would be better, he said last year, 'if it were to become once more the inviolable custom of every cricketer to walk to the pavilion the moment that he knows beyond doubt that he is out'.

The young England batsman Alastair Cook, who was on the panel at the lecture, smiled when asked to comment and politely said that he wouldn't 'walk' - and nor would anyone else playing international cricket. That's the real world - and it ain't going to change!

'Sledging' - well who started it?

Whilst professional cricketers opting to let the umpires take the decisions rather than giving themselves out seems reasonable, their use of invective and abuse to unsettle their opponents is not. But over the years the Australian team has employed sledging as a form of 'mental disintegration' designed deliberately to unsettle opponents.

Merv Hughes, Glenn McGrath, Steve Waugh and the often very foul-mouthed indeed Shane Warne were amongst the leading practitioners in this dark art. And, believe me, nothing was off limits in what they and their team-mates said.

So there is a big irony in Andrew Symonds (no shy retiring violet he) reporting Harbhajan Singh for apparently racially abusing him at Sydney. Surely the thing to have done if the 'Spirit of Cricket' really meant something would have been for Symonds to have had a quiet 'off the record' word with Ricky Ponting and for the Aussie captain to have spoken to Anil Kumble his opposite number.

If an apology was needed then Kumble could have asked Harbhajan to offer it and it would all have been handled amicably. Instead the tour is in jeopardy because the Aussies decided to wield the big stick of the ICC match referee. What hypocrisy.

Tampering and tantrums

Whilst the cricket establishments around the world wring their hands in distress as the game seems to move further away from the so-called 'Spirit' entrenched in the Laws it seems that there is little they can do about it.

Amongst the bad practices itemised in the preamble to the Laws we have seen just about every one in recent Test series. Time-wasting; deliberately damaging the pitch; dangerous bowling; ball tampering; lack of respect for opponents and the umpires; disputing umpire's decisions; abusive language are all part and parcel of the game today. Sure the ICC and the MCC and others can elegantly proscribe such practices in the Laws and rules and punish them from time to time. But it is really in the hands of the players.

Get the captains together

Writers, commentators, administrators and the public at large can bemoan the problems in cricket but in my view there is only one group of people who can do something about it - the captains of the international teams.

They are an impressive group of men at present -Ponting, Kumble, Michael Vaughan, Mahela Jayawardene, Daniel Vettori, Chris Gayle, Graeme Smith in particular are experienced and valued players and leaders.

I would throw the ball firmly in their direction. Get the ICC to bring these respected cricketers together and get them to thrash out a code of conduct on sledging, walking, time-wasting, intimidation and all the other hot issues.

Don't tie their hands but get the Captains to work out a code which they believe they can apply with their teams. Get them to sign it off and then send them back home to apply it in their cricket. I think that it would work. Then behaviour in cricket would improve not because some suit says that it must but because the players themselves believe that it is in their interest and in the long term interest of the game that it should.