Bell, Hughes and The Spirit of Cricket

As England storm towards what is, quite frankly, a magnificent victory in a magnificent match to seal a magnificent win in a magnificent series, there is one slightly distracting aspect – the debate about Ian Bell, Phil Hughes and is he/isn’t he a cheat.

For those who are unsure, to recap:

Phil Hughes is an Australian. With Alistair Cook – English batsman – on 99, Hughes looked like he might have caught Cook. He seemed unsure, but as his delighted teammates rushed to him, he threw the ball up in celebration. England appealed. The umpire referred. Hughes was shown to have caught after the bounce. Cook, reprieved, stayed in the crease to make 189 (when he was legitimately caught) and Hughes was decried in some corners and even called a cheat.

Ian Bell is an English batsman. He was on 67 runs when the umpire gave him out, caught behind, having nicked a delivery from Shane Watson. Bell appealed. The umpire referred. Hotspot – the computer system that marks a hot spot on a bat (i.e. where a ball has touched it) was negative. Bell, reprieved, stayed in the crease to make 115. However, another piece of cricketing technology – Snicko – which judges the sound made if a ball brushes a bat, but is unavailable to the video referees as it takes too long, had decreed that Bell had indeed nicked the ball and should have been given out. And if he had nicked it, as Snicko says, he would have known and therefore to appeal makes him … a canny sportsman.

So why are Hughes and Bell treated so differently? Why is one a cheat and the other simply playing to the laws of the game? Aren’t they really both chancers, seeing what they can get away with? Well, one part of the answer is that this cheat/not cheat stance is largely an English one – the Aussie fans were understandably not overjoyed with Bell when he walked off the field, much later than they felt he should have done. And Hughes has been roundly defended by his fellow Australian players.

Actually, and this is to the heart of the matter, Hughes has been roundly defended by the English players too – notably Cook, whose innings would have been cut unfairly short had his audacious claim been given. The debate is one largely propagated by the media. For the men out on the field, and indeed for the vast majority of fans, cricket isn’t about what are ultimately small matters and squabbles. It’s about something bigger, something represented by the glorious batting of Cook, or the rallying of players on both sides to defend Hughes. It’s what is known in football as ‘the beautiful game’. In cricket it is ‘the spirit of cricket’.

And it is from Rob Smyth’s stirring ‘The Spirit of Cricket’ that we can get a true sense of exactly how the spirit applies in the case of Bell and Hughes, for in the words of Duncan Fletcher:

“Some people have a very confused understanding of what the spirit of cricket is. Claiming a catch on the bounce, for example, is often seen as cheating. Well, yes, it is, but I don’t see why a fielder claiming the catch and leaving it to the umpire to make a decision is any different from a batsman nicking a catch behind and not walking. Yet one is seen as cheating and the other is not … It is all cheating, but some of it seen to be ‘in the spirit’ and some of it isn’t.

The spirit of cricket is not about whether a player is cheating or not; it is about how he conducts himself on and off the field, the respect with which he treats the game and the courtesy he shows the players and umpires.”

Hear, hear Duncan Fletcher. The spirit has been superbly upheld by both English and Australians alike and the Hughes/Bell incidents do nothing to diminish it. In fact, the spirit helps diminish them and put them in their proper place – minor flurries in an absorbing match. Now, to the final day and may victory come with it – enjoy the cricket in the spirit in which it is intended everyone!

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