Know the rules skipper....

There has been a lot of debate going on in the sports media over the dismissal of Inzamam Ul Haq during the 1st ODI between India & Pakistan at Peshawar. The sports media in our country is blowing this issue out of proportions & i have a feeling that the incident should have been closed & dead at the end of the day's play.

Over the last one week,the newspapers are focussing on this dismissal issue in its sports pages as if the appealing by the Indian players against the Pak skipper Inzi who obstructed the ball from hitting the stumps when he was a good 3-4 yards away from the crease, would lead to a nuclear war between the two nations.Suddenly the sports media is talking about ethics in cricket because they are well aware that any story between India & Pak sells in the people's minds'.Television channels are also not far behind, one talk show last night was fully dedicated to this dismissal & the funny part is that the topic being discussed is whether the indian players should have appealed against Inzi or not & also one point that came up was whether Dravid should have called Inzi back....i think the Indians played according to the rules of the game & i dont think that the media should go around asking present & ex-cricketers if the decision to appeal by the Indian players was right or not !!! As Dravid said during the press conference that "had the appeal been unfair,then the umpires would have surely intervened", especially when one of the umpires was from Pakistan & Pakistan cannot boast of too many fair umpires in the world of cricket ( read Shakoor Rana & others ).

Coming to Inzi, who is to an extent being portrayed as a martyr in the incident is actually the villain, it is difficult to believe that a player of his talent & records ( 20000 odd runs in int'l cricket) could bring this issue in the post match presentation ceremony saying that he is confused about the rules as he was given out in the same way against England a month back.After playing for 15 odd years at the highest level & still confused about the basic cricket rules,one can only feel sorry for the Pak captain who is also referred to as the Sleeping Giant in the cricketing world.Inzi even went a step ahead in his newspaper column saying that the appeal by the Indian players may cause discontent & hostility between the two nations in this high pressure series which again i thought was a very immature statement.

Anyways, i hope that Inzi is gifted the cricket rule book by someone & he should be also briefed as how to handle the media so that his 'off the field' strokes do not overshadow or undermine his 'on the pitch' talent.