A Scottish cricket club have apologised for breaching the spirit of cricket when executing – and raucously celebrating – a run out that should not have stood.
Falkland CC, which was founded in 1860 and is the oldest cricket club in Fife, issued a statement on Tuesday evening after a clip from their match against Carlton this weekend went viral.
It shows a Carlton batsman, Chris McBride, play and miss at a seam bowler, Ethan Frosler, with the wicketkeeper Steven Meikle taking the ball. He passes it to second slip, Kyle Jacobs, who, after a moment’s reflection, throws down the stumps at the striker’s end.
The batsman had checked that the wicketkeeper had passed the ball on, then stepped out of his ground, and the square-leg umpire gave him out after a vigorous appeal from the Falkland fielders. The disbelieving batsman gently protested, but was given a send-off by multiple fielders.
The disappointed batsman may have found considerable comfort in the fact that Carlton went on to win the match by one wicket.
The incident was, in some ways, reminiscent of Alex Carey’s infamous stumping of Jonny Bairstow at Lord’s last summer but there was one crucial difference: before even considering the nebulous spirit of the game, it should not have been given out under cricket’s laws.
Law 20.1 says “the ball becomes dead when it is finally settled in the hands of the wicket-keeper or of the bowler”. So having settled in the wicketkeeper’s hands for him to pass to the slip fielder, the ball was dead. By contrast, Carey’s predetermined plan to stump Bairstow saw him immediately shy at the stumps when he gathered the ball.
Falkland said in a statement that they had written to Carlton to apologise for the controversy.
“The club would like to put on record a sincere apology for the unsavoury incident that occurred during our recent match v Carlton. Our players’ actions were not in keeping with the spirit of cricket, a game that prides itself on respect, fairness, and sportsmanship, which in that moment our players failed to uphold.
“We also acknowledge that we put the umpires in a very difficult position, for which we also apologise.
“Moving forward, we are committed to reflecting on this incident and ensuring that such behaviour is never repeated.”
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