This Muruli thing has me puzzled. Here we have a very experienced Test cricketer (second in the all time wicket taking stakes) who you may argue has only got to that position because of the make up of the power base of the ICC and he makes the sort of error you usually see at schoolboy cricket level. He is quite legitimately given out and the country who encourages schools not to keep the score at netball start crying foul. He stuffed up because he wasn't concentrating (as we all do) in a professional sport and got done by Mr McCullum who was, at that moment, being a lot more professional. End of story. Spirit of the game - bollocks. Why should cricket be any different from any other sport. As Richard Boock points out this morning what would we all be saying this morning if McCullum had stayed his natural instincts and they had gone on to accrue another 40 runs and we had lost? Had Brendan not caught the throw in would Sangakara have turned down the overthrow to retain the strike? I don't think so. Would Gilchrist have done the same? Bloody right he would.
We hear time and time again that for NZ sport to move on we need a bit more 'mongrel' (what a dreadful expression), need to be a bit more like the Aussies who, when they have a foot on the throat, just push harder and harder. We see a great example of just that and we turn all touchy feely again. 'He was only going to congratulate his mate'. Tough. He's a big boy now and he's playing big boys games for big boys money.
I'll resist the temptation to point out that I think he is the best chucker of a cricket ball the world has ever seen. Oops, I just have.
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