Of course they won’t. England won’t do anything of the sort. They’ll use it as an opportunity to bitch about day two again and others will say it’s retribution, swings and roundabouts or any of those other terrific ways to say what goes around comes around.
If Hotspot (which wasn’t able to be used for Trott’s dismissal) was available for Broad’s effort, off the bowling of Ashton Agar (seriously, this guy won’t get out of the game), the TV technology would have exploded.
Forget the speculation about Trott hitting his one (it’s totally inconclusive), the deflection off Broad’s bat echoed, before it deviated so much it missed Brad Haddin’s gloves and into Michael Clarke’s safe mitts.
To compare the two as similar would put you in the intellectual league of Donkey from Shrek, Bubbles from Ab Fab and Dougal from Father Ted (other considerations for this line included Peter Griffin, Joey from Friends, any of the Young Ones but they’re awesome, and George Bush)
The Aussies went a little ballistic at the decision, and going on the logic of international cricket will be fined/warned/tutt-tutted. They’re appeals will be greater in the aftermath and James Pattinson was warned for getting too excited.
But Stuart Broad stood his ground, awaited a decision and was given not out by the best umpire in the world a few times.
Some say the English “all-rounder” – yes, OS just lazily used quote marks to show ironic intent – should have walked.
That too is a load of rubbish.
Adam Gilchrist, one of the rare noted walkers in the history of modern world cricket, once said “the whole world is watching champ”, to an opponent who didn’t walk.
Yep, the whole world of Australia and England, and curious observers from other nations who want one of us to lose, is indeed watching.
I would guess – let us know if you don’t agree – most of them would have said, ‘Enjoy that one mate, you’ll get a good one next time.’
The whole thing basically takes the piss out of the decision review system, which was brought in to eliminate the howler from cricket, but is used recklessly
Basically, it serves Clarke right for using up his reviews already – one of them on an LBW shout on Bairstow that was ambitious at best and he should give Haddin a clip around the ear for letting him send it upstairs.
It’s beyond us why, though, with all the technology available, someone upstairs couldn’t say, ‘Um, Aleem, are you blind?’ And done so before the next ball was bowled. And sent Broad packing.
What sucks is this has been a cracking game, one for cricket fans who have mates who say cricket is boring.
A brilliant little yarn by the Wall Street Journal tried to make sense of the magnitude of what Ashton Agar did yesterday.
But England are well on top now, and all that will be talked about is crappy umpiring calls.
A final note for the underrated Ian Bell – while everyone was falling, drama going off, he was compiling what will probably be the first century of the game. He finished the day on 95. Broad is on 45 now. For the Aussies, ouch.
Image via Getty
