World Cup: The ugly side of the Kiwis

The New Zealand cricketers may be great fans of their famous All Black rugby team. But they cannot mimic their
intimidatory ways on a cricket field.

Cricket is not a contact sport, which skipper Daniel Vettori would surely know. Yet, he and a few other Kiwi players, notably substitute Kyle Mills who was bringing drinks on to the field, cast the spirit of the game to the winds and hustled, abused and sledged South African batsman Francois du Plessis in what must surely rank as one of the most disgraceful incidents seen on a cricket field in recent times.

The incident exposed the ugly side of New Zealand cricket and marred their stunning upset of South Africa in the World Cup quarterfinal on Friday.

Immediately after the run out of South African AB de Villiers, Kyle Mills, who had brought out drinks for his players, began sledging and pushing around the not out batsman Francois du Plessis.

The latter returned the shove but was instantly surrounded by a pack of aggressive New Zealanders, including Vettori. All of them could clearly be seen swearing at him while a couple of them tried to push him around. On seeing the incident, De Villiers who was walking back to the pavilion, came over to Du Plessis’ aid. The situation would have got out of control but for the umpires intervening.

It was apparent that the Kiwis were trying to upset Du Plessis in the hope that he’d react poorly and throw away his wicket. But the sort of intimidatory huddle they threw around him was a disgrace on the cricket field. Maybe in rugby or football, it may be the done thing. But not so in cricket, where the Spirit of the Game is enshrined in the preamble to the Laws of Cricket.

There have been isolated instances of illegal body contact in cricket. During the 1971 tour of England, fast bowler John Snow shoulder-charged Sunil Gavaskar as he was completing a single. Snow maintained that he was going for the ball, but the England cricket board officials were not fooled. They ordered him to apologise to Gavaskar and then banned him for a Test.

A decade later, Australia’s Dennis Lillee and Pakistan’s Javed Miandad were involved in a worse fracas. Lillee obstructed the batsman and got into a verbal duel with him. The enraged batsman raised his bat as if to smash the bowler on his head. The duo was hastily separated by the umpire. Lillee was dropped for two ODI matches and both players were fined.

Two other incidents will suffice to show that these incidents were occurring sporadically. But by then, there were match referees in place and they were expected to protect the spirit of the game. In 1992 in South Africa, bowler Kapil Dev ran out non-striker Peter Kirsten for backing up too far. In the same over, a fuming Kepler Wessels, while going for the second run hit Kapil Dev behind the knee with the bat. Match referee Clive Lloyd said he had not seen the incident and strangely there was no television footage either.  But Wessels admitted that he had made contact with Kapil’s shin!

More recently, in 2008, match referee Chris Broad banned Gautam Gambhir for one Test after he admitted elbowing Australian bowler Shane Watson when he obstructed him. In fact, Gambhir had scored a ton in the earlier Test and was on his way to a double ton when this incident happened. Besides Watson, Simon Katich too obstructed and repeatedly sledged Gambhir. They were hoping to get him to overreact and cop a ban. They succeeded. Watson, meanwhile, was fined just 10 per cent of his match fee.

These incidents showed that the Spirit of the Game needed to be upheld not just by the players, but umpires and match referees too. It would be pertinent to point out what the 2000 Code of the MCC Laws of Cricket states in its preamble to the Spirit of the Game:

“Cricket is a game that owes much of its unique appeal to the fact that it should be played not only within its Laws but also within the Spirit of the Game. Any action which is seen to abuse this spirit causes injury to the game itself. The major responsibility for ensuring the spirit of fair play rests with the captains.”

The preamble goes on to state that the Spirit of the Game involves respect for opponents and the game’s traditional values.

Specifically, it states that it is against the Spirit of the Game to direct abusive language towards an opponent or umpire and to seek to distract an opponent either verbally or by harassment

These apart, its 6th point — that there is no place for any act of violence on the field of play — damns the New Zealanders.

Indeed, there is no doubt that the Kiwis appalling behaviour on Friday deserves to be severely punished. Skipper Vettori not only failed to restrain his players, but also actively took part in the assault on the traditional values of the game warrants worse.

In this context, match referee Roshan Mahanama has a great responsibility to the game. If he slips up, or is seen as too lenient, an ICC committee must step in and ensure that the traditional values and the Spirit of the Game which make cricket what it is are protected.