Former England captain Ian Botham branded Australia’s opening batsman Phil Hughes a cheat on air while commentating for Sky TV during the third and final Ashes Test at the Sydney cricket ground in January 2011. In his usual up-and-at-them style, Botham accused Hughes of deliberately claiming a clean catch even though he knew that the ball had bounced in front of him.
England’s prolific Ashes opener Alastair Cook was on 99 when he delicately turned a delivery from Michael Beer towards Hughes at short leg. Hughes leapt high and claimed the catch. Umpire Billy Bowden immediately consulted TV umpire Tony Hill who, using vital close-up video footage, followed the ball from Cook’s bat and was satisfied that the ball had bounced before it had finally settled in Hughes’ hands.
Botham was furious, and he railed: ‘Terrible. Cheating. How much do you want it to bounce in your hands? He knows he hasn’t caught it. There’s no appeal. Someone else says something, then he goes up.’ All through the drama, Cook remained Mr Cool, and continued slaying the Aussies until he was dismissed at 189 to become only the sixth England player to score three centuries in a series in Australia.
Once the day’s play had ended, Cook and Australia’s acting captain Michael Clarke hit back at Botham, strongly defending Hughes as a player of integrity. Cook said: ‘Obviously it was very close, and to be fair to Phil Hughes, he said straight away “I wasn’t sure”. I was obviously going to hang around. On 99, you don’t walk off quickly. You want to be dragged off. He said he wasn’t sure, so it went upstairs, and I think the right decision was made.’
Clarke fully agreed, and said: ‘I can guarantee one thing, and that is Phillip Hughes is not a cheat. He is a wonderful young guy. The end result was spot-on. Hughes wasn’t sure, and Brad Haddin [the wicketkeeper], who saw the ball clearly, wasn’t sure, and we made that quite clear to the umpires, who referred the catch to the third umpire, and the right result was made.’
World cricket’s worst ever year for multiple scandals, skulduggery and depressing misconduct had continued right into the 2010 festive season, when two of the game’s most experienced captains paid no heed to sharing the goodwill of Christmas with those around them. Australia’s desperate Ricky Ponting and South Africa’s abrasive Graeme Smith both lost their cool at precisely the same time in different matches thousands of miles apart – and both while staring defeat in the face.
In Smith’s case he was badly taunted by lippy pace bowler Shanthakumaran Sreesanth, the renowned Indian serial sledger, but there was no cause whatsoever for Ponting to go berserk and set about two highly respected umpires, who were doing their job admirably. They did not deserve the type of aggressive grilling that sports fans have come to hate from arrogant, overrated footballers intimidating referees in the English Premier League.
Ponting and his battered Australian team-mates were chugging aimlessly to yet another Ashes contest defeat against their brightly polished England opponents at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) when he suddenly overheated like an old banger, blew a proverbial gasket, and plumes of personal hot air spewed into the arena.
Kevin Pietersen, one of a number of England’s top performers, with a distinctive South African accent, was at the crease and gingerly poked at a quick delivery from pace bowler Ryan Harris. He saw the ball zip past his bat and straight into the gloves of wicketkeeper Brad Haddin.
Harris and his Aussie colleagues were plainly satisfied that Pietersen’s bat had not made contact with the ball, and they did not appeal for a catch, but Haddin very definitely thought otherwise. He leapt and shrieked and implored umpire Aleem Dar to raise his finger and send Pietersen to the pavilion.
But the placid Pakistani official stood firm, rejected Haddin’s frantic pleadings, and was ready to get on with the game when Ponting strode forward and asked for the incident to be referred to the third umpire, Marais Erasmus, for him to decide finally whether Pietersen had hit the ball and been caught legitimately.
Again the decision was ‘not out’, and it was at this point that Ponting exploded into an eight-minute rant at Aleem Dar and his umpiring colleague Tony Hill, repeatedly wagging his finger and remonstrating in a manner that belied the respect that he held in the game. Match referee Ranjan Madugalle fined Ponting a paltry 40 per cent of his match fee ($5,400) for dissent towards the umpires, which the Australian captain thought was fair. In truth, it should have been much tougher.
Legendary Australian batsman Greg Chappell believed Ponting’s prolonged ugly tirade deserved a ban, and let fly at the ICC for not punishing him more severely. Chappell said: ‘If I were adjudicating, I think a suspension would be in order. The International Cricket Council has to get tough on this sort of thing. I’m not sure it’s a sign of [Ponting] cracking. I think it’s just a bad habit that Ricky has. He likes to argue judgement calls with umpires, and it should have been stopped long ago.’
Chappell felt it was time to remind the public that the ICC had fined Ponting four times in four years for dissent and, as this action had clearly failed to deter him, a heavier penalty was justified. However, once he had cooled down, Ponting apologised for the way that he had lashed out at the two innocent officials, but still desperately tried to justify that video umpire Marais Erasmus was wrong to rule that Pietersen had not touched the ball with his bat as it went through to wicketkeeper Haddin.
Ponting protested: ‘I had a chance to look at it again last night, and I still, in my heart and mind, believe that he inside-edged that ball. If you look at the replay properly, in the way that it needs to be looked at, I think everyone will understand that the hot-spot mark wasn’t a long way from where the ball passed the bat, but that’s irrelevant now. The decision was made, and I have to get on with it.
‘I got caught in the heat of the moment and went on too long with that chat. I know that we’ve kept some footage through this series of different decisions that have been made, as far as the use of technology is concerned, and that’s taken up at a higher level. Maybe that’s how I should have handled it yesterday.’
Ponting believed it was a blatant flaw that all replays were shown on the big screen, and remained convinced that from what could be seen on the screen, there was a ‘pretty obvious hot-spot mark on the inside-edge of his bat’. He wanted to make it clear that all he wished to do was clarify what had caused the third umpire to make the decision, which was what started the discussion between him and Aleem Dar.
Ponting rather reluctantly conceded: ‘There’s no doubt that my actions have caused a massive public reaction. I just wanted to put my points across about it. I understand that I overstepped the mark, and I was charged with dissent for having a prolonged discussion with the umpires.
‘When I looked back at it last night, I realised that it didn’t look good. The umpires vouched for me in the meeting [with the match referee]. They said that at no time was I actually aggressive, or showed any malice towards them, just that the discussion went on longer than it should have done. I understand that I set a bad example for other captains and young people who look up to me as the Australian captain.’
Ponting accepted that judgements were being made about him, and conceded that a lot of those views were because he hadn’t scored the runs that he needed to score.
With an unusually urgent ring to his voice, he said: ‘I understand that, and I understand the criticism that is coming my way at the moment is pretty much warranted. I just have to find a way to get myself out of that.’
Ponting was confident that the incident would not affect his future dealings with Dar or Hill, and said: ‘It wasn’t the on-field umpires, anyway, that made the decision. I was just having that discussion with the guys that were in the middle. I really like the two guys. I think they are two of the better umpires in the world. The relationship that I have had with Aleem Dar over the years has been first-class, so nothing has changed.’
Pietersen was on 49 when Ponting’s appeal was turned down, and he added only two more runs before he was dismissed, which made Ponting’s absurd blast even more pointless. It got even worse for Ponting when England later cruised to a scintillating victory by an innings and 157 runs to retain the Ashes, and within 24 hours he was being medically ruled out of the final Test at Sydney, having caused further damage to a broken finger.
Less than 24 hours after England’s colossal win, Pietersen was at his boastful worst when he attempted to claim that the team’s enormous success had resulted directly from him engineering the removal of previous coach Peter Moores in 2008.
With no sign of tongue in cheek or mischievous twinkle in an eye, Pietersen appeared to be totally serious when he said: ‘I got rid of the captaincy for the good of English cricket. We wouldn’t be here today if I hadn’t done what I did then. There is no way in this world that we would have continued under that regime and won the Ashes again in Australia.’
Pietersen was fired after only three Tests following major rows with Moores in India in December 2008, and the ECB reacted swiftly to Pietersen’s claim that Moores was holding England back, sacking both of them and handing the captaincy to Andrew Strauss.
England’s magnificent MCG triumph was their biggest win over Australia since they trounced them by an innings and 170 runs at Old Trafford in 1956, when the furious Aussies bawled ‘cheats’ for allegedly fixing the pitch on which Surrey’s brilliant off-spin bowler Jim Laker captured an incredible 19 wickets in the match.
The pitch was unusually dusty for Old Trafford, and after England had amassed 459 when batting first, Australia were shot out for 84, with Laker picking up 9-37, and he quickly followed up with 10-53 in the Australian second innings. Australian opener Colin McDonald was livid, and raged: ‘England cheated – if by cheating you include the practice of preparing wickets to suit your own purpose.’
Former Australian spinner Bill O’Reilly went further, writing in his newspaper column: ‘This pitch was an absolute disgrace. What lies in store for Test cricket if the groundsmen are allowed to play the fool like this again?’
In Durban, over Christmas 2010, South Africa’s captain Graeme Smith was at the centre of a bust-up with firebrand Shanthakumaran Sreesanth in a bad-tempered Second Test, which India went on to win. Shortly before he was dismissed for 37, a riled Smith had exchanged words with Sreesanth and appeared to point his bat at the bowler in a moment of anger and frustration.
But when asked to explain what had taken place, Smith stayed tight-lipped, saying: ‘I’m not going to get into that. It’s between Sreesanth and me. I’ve played enough Test cricket to know what I can handle and what I can’t handle.’ India’s captain M S Dhoni was far more forthright: ‘There are guidelines that need to be followed. You need to be yourself, but you shouldn’t get into the other person’s space. You shouldn’t cross the limit.’
Dhoni revealed that he had spoken to Sreesanth about the time he took to complete an over during the previous Test match, when India fell behind the required rate, and he explained: ‘One thing I told him is that, if it takes six or seven minutes to bowl an over, it can be very difficult. In the last Test we were five or six overs down, and we had to use part-timers a lot. He did well in this game. The over rate was good and he bowled well. You always need to have him under control. It’s good for everyone – for him, our side, the opposition, umpires, and spectators.’
Trying to shed light on the blazing row, South African spinner Paul Harris said: ‘I know Sreesanth has said a few personal comments on the field, which is not great. Graeme doesn’t usually react in that type of situation. We want to see it played hard on the field, but not getting personal. It’s a fine line, and we don’t want to see players cross that. If it was personal, and I’ve heard it was, I think we should stamp it out of the game.’
Sreesanth has been warned several times for indiscipline, both on and off the cricket field. In October 2009 the Indian Cricket Board issued a final warning to him to mend his on-field behaviour or he would be banned from domestic matches. He was also involved in an ugly incident with Indian colleague Harbhajan Singh after he had taken two wickets to help Kings XI Punjab beat the Mumbai Indians, captained by Harbhajan, in an IPL match in Mohali.
It was alleged that Sreesanth had approached Harbhajan at the end of the match and said ‘hard luck’, and that Harbhajan had lost his cool and struck Sreesanth in the face. Earlier in the match Sreesanth had exchanged words with batsman Robin Uthappa, who was leading Mumbai’s run chase. The fast bowler’s extravagant celebrations after dismissing Shaun Pollock also angered the opposition.
Sreesanth denied that he had exchanged words with opposing players on the field, and was ‘shocked’ by the reaction from Harbhajan, who declined to answer questions at a subsequent press conference. Sreesanth’s captain Yuvraj Singh refused to let the issue pass without comment, saying: ‘This was an ugly incident and totally unacceptable.’
Former Australian captain Ian Chappell once described Sreesanth as ‘an accident waiting to happen’.