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Thursday, August 19, 2010

The much talked No ball and the debut of Wahab Riaz

‘Oney nam, no ball ekak danna puluwan’ - can you translate this ……..


Morning read the news of England bundled out with debutant Wahab Riaz taking five for. Left arm pace bowlers are some what rare but not in Pak. Riaz is one and his genre flows unabated in Pak cricket. There have been Azeem Hafeez, Wasim Akram, Tanvir Sohail to Mohammed Ameer. Riaz has had a memorable debut.



Wahab Riaz took five wickets on debut as Pakistan ended the first day of the third Test against England in a sound position at The Oval here on Wednesday. When I was reading this, my 11 year old son remarked that he did not fare well against India. I don’t remember to have heard his name at all but true to what Athul said, he had played 5 one dayers and had played in ODI 2705 held at Bangladesh on 10th June 2008 when Yusuf Pathan made his debut. India made 330/8 in 50 and won by 140 runs. Wahab Riaz had leaked 86 in 9.2 taking 2 wickets.


Coming back to the recent India Lanka match, some tend to write that the no ball was a non event – it does not appear so. Whether another ton got added to the list of Sehwag may not be so material but the act and the attitude of Lankans leaves lot to be said. The words at the start were clearly heard uttered by Tilakaratne Dilshan who was fielding at point. It was loud and clear instruction to Randiv literally instructing him to bowl a no ball. This coupled with the letting of 4 byes displayed the real spirit – coming as it does who has played for three seasons under Sehwag for Delhi Daredevils is sordid indeed. The TV footage shows Viru taking guard, Dilshan’s voice is lewd, Sangakkara certainly heard it – though Viru would not have understood what was uttered in Sinhalese.


Leaving Sehwag stranded by this plan was simply school boyish and immature act. The rule is also ridiculous as the ball would be counted as having been played by Sehwag but the six scored of it would not count.  

There were reports that Randiv apologized to Sehwag but Sanga played a new game quoting other incidents, especially the monkeygate of Indian fame. This might be well within the law but certainly not the spirit.


Subsequently Randiv has been suspended for one match and Dilshan fined his match fee. The captain who tried to act innocent got away unscathed. That is the decision of 6 men committee of SL board. Sanga was advised to ensure that such incidents are not repeated in feature notwithstanding the fact that Lankans acted in a similar manner – Malinga bowling a wide to deny Sachin a century at Cuttack one dayer.


Now there cannot be any speculation on whether it was deliberate at all. ICC has welcomed the swift and decisive action.


Rules are clear that the moment the no ball is called, a run is scored and technically the match was over once that single came irrespective of whether the over stepping was deliberate or otherwise. But how one can dissect into the occurrence within the delivery is a ridiculous explanation. If two runs are required, batsmen driving the ball completes the two – but after that split second ball also crosses the boundary – will it be 2 or a four – will the Team and batsmen get 2 or four ?


Anyway – the tournament is alive with another crucial match between Kiwi and Lankans today


- Sampathkumar S

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