B D Narayankar Pune: The swashbuckling World Cup final knock by dashing Aussie left-hander Adam Gilchrist had left the Sri Lankan Lions gasping for breath after he etched the now famous 149 runs of just 103 balls that took not only the game away from them, but also the coveated Cup.
That was simply an unbelievable effort from someone who had been doing it for many years for the Aussies quite regularly. For Gilchrist, the 2007 World Cup in the initial stages was not a good memory to cherish. He was struggling with his form and failed to score runs against top teams.
But, how could he achieve to get back into his rythm in the finals? This question would not have evoked interest if Gilchrist would not have revealed about sqeezing a squash ball in his left, bottom hand-glove to help him with his grip to middle the ball to perfection. He hit six sixes and 13 boundaries in his extraordinary innings.
One should give credit to this Aussie for his fantastic performance for it is too difficult to control shots with an alien object sqeezed into the glove. But let us not also forget whether such a foreign stuff is allowed inside the batsmen's gloves? If it is not, as the laws suggest, then Gilchrist's innings and Aussies' World Cup triumph was illegal.
A very famous international umpire, who is associated with Anil Kumble's one of the historic exploits, told Maharashtra Herald from abroad that a batsman cannot carry an object —in this case, a squash ball — not connected with cricket to help him on the field.
Even if Gilchrist wanted to use it he should have sought prior permission of the umpires and the fielding side captain -- in this case Mahela Jayawardene, he said, further elaborating: ''Sub-section 6 of Law 3 deals with the conduct of the game, implements and equipment. It reads as: No player uses equipment other than that permitted.
The list of permitted external items for a batsman are a helmet, pads, hand gloves and, if visible, fore-arm guards. Spectacles and jewellery are classified under clothing items. ''Gilchrist’s squash ball was, therefore, neither a piece of protective equipment, nor a clothing item, and was most certainly not visible to either side or the umpires. And nowhere in cricket’s 42 laws is there a mention of a squash ball as a permitted item,'' Karnataka umpire M K Suresh said.
However, another noted international umpire Shavir Tarapore disagreed saying that he would not mind Gilchrist using a sqash ball in his glove. ''If rules are to be adhered to, then even wicketkeepers' inner gloves are not permitted to be used by batsmen. But many top batsmen use them,'' he said.
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