{"id":125639,"date":"2014-06-08T01:06:58","date_gmt":"2014-06-07T19:36:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=125639"},"modified":"2014-06-15T22:14:00","modified_gmt":"2014-06-15T16:44:00","slug":"doing-the-done-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/doing-the-done-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Doing The \u2018Done Thing\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Malinda Seneviratne<\/a><\/span>\u00a0–<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Malinda<\/a>

Malinda Seneviratne<\/p><\/div>\n

Sachithra Senanayake was booed each time he came up to bowl, each time he touched the ball.\u00a0 This is after he \u2018Mankaded\u2019 Jos Buttler.\u00a0 A lot has been said and written about the incident.\u00a0 There has been self-righteous indignation, there\u2019s been \u2018titting-for-tatting\u2019 arguments and there has been sober reference to ICC laws.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ravi Bopara said \u2018It is definitely not within the spirit of the game. I wouldn\u2019t say Jos was stealing yards, he was just casually leaving the crease. It is just the done thing.\u2019\u00a0 He adds, \u2018if that\u2019s the way Matthews and Sri Lanka want to play their cricket then it\u2019s up to them; hopefully we don\u2019t step to that level.\u2019<\/p>\n

Oh! Wow!<\/p>\n

Now Bopara and Buttler had almost brought England a hard-to-imagine win in the 4th<\/sup> ODI.\u00a0 There were some 20 plus occasions when ones were converted into twos.\u00a0 \u2018Good running,\u2019 the commentators said.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t watching Buttler doing the \u2018done thing\u2019 though. However, the only difference between this \u2018done thing\u2019 and running in a manner that compels the umpire to signal \u2018one short\u2019 is that the former happens at delivery point and the latter post-delivery and post-stroke.\u00a0 If one is the \u2018done thing\u2019 then the other is too.<\/p>\n

According to Bopara, though, stepping out early is morally superior to being punished for doing so after being warned more than once.<\/b>\u00a0 Should we not say \u2018fiddlesticks!\u2019?<\/p>\n

The last word on the issue, to my mind, came from my colleague Callistus Davy: \u2018It is not something that players should sort out. It\u2019s for the umpires to decide.\u2019\u00a0 True.\u00a0 The \u2018spirit of the game,\u2019 frequently alluded to with reference to this incident is way too subjective to come to any conclusion one way or another.\u00a0 \u2018Laws\u2019 are more robust and they are pretty clear on this matter.\u00a0 If you are deliberately taking cover under \u2018spirit of the game\u2019 to steal a few singles and with it a game, that\u2019s the worst kind of violation of this \u2018spirit of the game\u2019.<\/p>\n

The warning should have come from the umpire, not the players.\u00a0 The umpire watched for no-balls and is required to ascertain if a run has been completed.\u00a0 People get run out by fractions of an inch and therefore gaining a couple of yards by \u2018doing the done thing\u2019 is cheating.\u00a0 What Bopara is therefore saying is \u2018We cheat and that\u2019s the \u201cdone thing\u201d as far as England is concerned\u2019.\u00a0 In this instance Senanayake, by warning, was being kind.\u00a0 Rightfully, though, Sri Lanka need not refer to the warning to buttress justification.\u00a0 Mankaading is legal.\u00a0 That\u2019s it.<\/p>\n

The \u2018booing point\u2019 however is that Senanayake\u2019s action was brought into question before <\/b>the final game began.\u00a0 He was the most successful Sri Lankan bowler in the series. His action has been cleared by many on many occasions.\u00a0 This of course doesn\u2019t mean that he cannot or would never again err, but the timing of the complaint is significant.\u00a0 It coincides with England facing a decider.<\/p>\n

Is this cricket?\u00a0 Is it politics (as usual)?\u00a0 Here\u2019s an analogy. Sri Lankan security forces were about to vanquish the LTTE<\/span><\/a> in the first few months of 2009.\u00a0 \u2018War crimes!\u2019 was the word for \u2018Mankaading\u2019 in that context.\u00a0 \u2018Not in the spirit of the game\u2019, was the argument, the relevant reference being the Geneva Convention, never mind that the said document is like used toilet paper if the USA and its allies (the UK included) are involved.\u00a0 That match was won, but the Bopara-like whines didn\u2019t stop.\u00a0 In that instance, apart from \u2018tokenist\u2019 objection to LTTE\u2019s preferred methodologies of \u2018playing the game,\u2019 there was largely silence on what the other side was doing.\u00a0 Like holding some 300,000 civilians hostage, for example.\u00a0 That was the equivalent of doing Buttler\u2019s \u2018done thing\u2019.\u00a0 Calling a probe on bowling action, then, is also the \u2018done thing\u2019, as \u2018done\u2019 as trying to steal a single and as \u2018done\u2019 as being horrified when the thief is caught napping.<\/p>\n

One thing is certain.\u00a0 The call to hang Sachithra Senanayake will continue.\u00a0 There are Navi Pillay\u2019s in the cricketing world too, after all.\u00a0 Obamas and Camerons too.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s called \u2018doing the done thing\u2019.\u00a0 That\u2019s polite-speak for getting away with cheating and what better way than to pass the cheat-buck back to the enemy, huh?<\/p>\n

*Malinda Seneviratne is the Chief Editor of \u2018The Nation\u2019\u00a0and his articles can be found at\u00a0www.malindawords.blogspot.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":105560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nDoing The \u2018Done Thing\u2019 - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/doing-the-done-thing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Doing The \u2018Done Thing\u2019 - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/doing-the-done-thing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-06-07T19:36:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-06-15T16:44:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Malinda-Seneviratne-150x150.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"130\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"135\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/doing-the-done-thing\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/doing-the-done-thing\/\",\"name\":\"Doing The \u2018Done Thing\u2019 - 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