The contentious run-out of Ian
Bell at the stroke of tea on the
third day, which threatened to
erupt into the biggest
controversy of the series, was
overturned during the break after MS Dhoni withdrew the
appeal. At the stroke of tea, Bell's run-
out on 137, after having left the
crease before the ball was dead,
was on the verge of becoming a
major point of dispute between
the two sides. During the break, England captain Andrew Strauss
and coach Andy Flower went to
the Indian dressing room to ask
MS Dhoni if the run-out decision
could be overturned. The Indians
agreed to withdraw the appeal. At the resumption after tea, Bell
and Eoin Morgan walked out to
cheers from a surprised and
appreciative crowd, which just a
few minutes earlier had booed
the two umpires - a small section of the crowd even chanting, the
word 'cheat' - and then the
Indian team as it made its way
out, with Strauss and his men
standing on the balcony of their
pavilion clapping the Indians onto the field. It all began when Morgan flicked
the last ball of the 66th over,
from Ishant Sharma, to deep
square leg where Praveen Kumar
tumbled over trying to field. The
batsmen, having taken the third, appeared to be unsure whether
the ball had reached the
boundary. Morgan held up his
arm to Bell, who jogged halfway
down the pitch and then
continued walking down. The throw from Praveen eventually
came in to Abhinav Mukund, who
took off the bails and appealed
for a run-out. By that time, Bell
had punched gloves with his
partner and was heading towards the pavilion. The umpires checked again with
the Indians as to whether they
had appealed. When the Indians
said they had, the third umpire
was asked to establish whether
the ball had crossed the boundary. The two batsmen, who
had reached the edge of the
field, were asked not to leave
the ground. There was a delay of eight
minutes as the third umpire
reviewed the replay and decided
that the ball had not crossed
the boundary. The decision of
"out" flashed up on the screen, and the Indians left the field to
heavy booing from the crowd.
The Sky TV coverage showed
during the incident as well on its
nightly news, a clipping of Bell
walking towards fourth umpire Tim Robinson and saying what
sounded like, "He called over." In
his media conference, however
Bell said he did not hear any
umpire calling 'over.' The Sky TV
audio track also has no sound of the umpire calling over. The only
time the word "over" is heard on
that piece of video tape, comes
from Ishant who, after the bails
are dislodged, is heard asking in
Hindi if the over had ended and whether it was time for tea. Just over an hour after the
incident, an announcement was
made on the stadium's public
address system, explaining the
incident to the full house at
Trent Bridge. The crowd heard that after Strauss and Flower
asked Dhoni to withdraw the
appeal, he went across to his
team-mates and sought their
view. The team agreed to recall
Bell to the crease and the decision was made known to the
England camp. The announcement
stated that the ECB thanked the
Indian team's gesture to
withdraw the appeal against Bell
and asked the crowd to show its appreciation. Once the
announcement ended, applause
rang out all around Trent Bridge. Speaking after the day's play,
Bell was appreciative of India's
decision to reinstate him, and
admitted that it was naive on his
part to leave the crease with
the ball still in play. "From Praveen's body language, it
looked like that had gone for
four," Bell told the Star Cricket
channel. "Probably naïve on my
behalf, but taking into account
the spirit of cricket and everything, this was probably
the right decision. It wasn't until
we [Bell and Morgan] reached
the boundary rope, when the
umpires asked us to wait, that I
knew something was on. It's fantastic the way India have
gone about this. The captains
and coaches got together, and
were asked if the decision would
stand. Duncan Fletcher and MS
Dhoni went back to discuss it with the team and came back to
us, and I got the nod." Rahul Dravid said the Indian team
was in unanimous agreement
that the decision had to be
reversed. "In the laws of the
game, if you follow them strictly,
that was out, but it didn't feel right in the spirit of the game,"
he said. "There was a team
discussion during the tea
interval, Dhoni and Fletcher
convened the meeting, and Dhoni
led it. There was a feeling of unanimity that we should
reinstate Bell because the spirit
of the game was important, and
that getting him out in that way
would contravened the spirit ... If
this had happened to our guys we would not have been happy
about it. So all of that was
discussed." There was appreciation from the
ECB chief executive David Collier
and the ICC chief executive
Haroon Lorgat, both of whom
acknowledged the appeal for the
run-out was a valid one. "The withdrawal of a valid appeal at
the tea interval was made in the
spirit of cricket by the India
team and demonstrates the true
spirit in which the game of
cricket should be played and the excellent relationship between
the ECB and BCCI," Collier said in
a statement. "On behalf of the
ECB I wish to express the
England and Wales Cricket
Board's grateful thanks the BCCI and the India team." Lorgat said the withdrawal of
the appeal showed great
maturity on the part of India.
"The initial appeal and umpire
decision may have been
acceptable to the letter of the law, the decision by India captain
M S Dhoni and his team -as well
as the Team India coaching staff
- to withdraw the appeal shows
great maturity. To see players
and officials uphold the Great Spirit of cricket, which has
underpinned the game for more
than a century, is very special."t
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