With the advent of DRS technology umpires have been reduced to being robots on the field. For everything they have the option of going up. It is a thankless job. You do it well and no one will speak about you. You make a mistake and you are the talk of the town. And when you are umpiring a cricket match where Virat Kohli has scored a 100, it is near impossible you will get even a line of newsprint. And yet Richard Kettleborough has. He is trending on social media platforms this morning as well, 12 hours after the game has ended.
There is a very thin line between law and spirit. According to law it was a wide. But then the umpire is not just the custodian of the law or the game. He is there to uphold the spirit of cricket as well. With the result not on the line and the spirit getting violated, Kettleborough decided to not call it a wide. He has been criticised for the call by some. They aren’t wrong either. But if cricket has spirit taken out of it, it isn’t a sport that we all love. You want a batter to walk despite a wrong decision for that’s spirit. You want a captain to call the opponent back at times because that’s upholding the spirit. You want a batter to walk if he has nicked the ball and even if the umpire hasn’t heard it for that’s what makes cricket what it is. Players sign the spirit of cricket pledge.
Let me say this- Kettleborough upheld the spirit of the game. The wide was well within laws but in this debate between law and spirit, the umpire in charge backed the spirit of sport. And let me also say this, it is he who is in charge of the law on the field. If he says it isn’t a wide in his eyes who are we to challenge a subjective call. Had he given it a wide and had Nasum bowled another illegal delivery and stopped the Kohli 100, all talk this morning would be about an unnecessary controversy.
This World Cup has been boring. It needs characters. Kohli on 48 ODI hundreds is a character. Can he break Sachin’s record in this tournament itself? It adds to the World Cup .and thanks to Kettleborough it is now a possibility.
Kettleborough too is a character. His actions are being debated and discussed. And there is no right or wrong. Spirit can never be dismissed completely at the altar of law. Richard Kettleborough is a hero to a legion of Indian fans. And for a relatively one sided contest, it isn’t a bad outcome.
As a footnote, Kettleborough was the ICC’s best umpire for 3 consecutive years between 2013-2015. And hence knows a thing or two about umpiring.