In an example of the famous complexity of Test match cricket, The England & Wales Cricket Board have confirmed that having a three-day tantrum after losing a match is within the spirit of the game, while legitimately dismissing a batter is not.
“It’s one of those intangible parts of the game that newcomers can sometimes struggle with,” a spokesperson for English cricket said today.
“Stumping a player when he is out of his crease, even if it is literally written in the rule book, is definitely not within the spirit of the game. But throwing your toys out of the pram, calling the other team cheats and having a massive sook when you lose a close one, well – that’s exactly the type of thing we mean when we talk of the gentleman’s game”.
He said the ‘unwritten rules’ were very straight forward once you got to know the game. “It’s pretty simple. When our wicketkeeper attempts to dismiss a player when he walks out of his crease, as he did within the most recent test – that is within the spirit of the game. And when our coach did the same thing during his playing days, that was also within the spirit of the game, obviously. But when Australia did it to us, well, clearly that’s just tremendously disrespectful”.
