Posted by Bonus on 15/7/2009, 8:09 am, in reply to "Re: interesting stuff"
203.34.63.1
It's good to see the Ploughman's Lunch in full discussion. We even heard from Nas again! All good points raised by everyone. I may have sounded argumentative, and a bit generalistic over the last few days, but that wasn't the intention. So, moving forward, the bad taste in my mouth has subsided. My thoughts are this:
1. If a batsman injures himself during the course of play, he can ask the opposition captain if he's allowed to bat with a runner. Everyone's happy with that and is an accepted part of cricket. Now, I see the handling of physio's coming onto the field in a similar light. It's a bit presumptuous of the batsman to just stop play each time he thinks he needs the physio to give him a bit of magic spray. In Swann's case when he was hit on the body a few times by Siddle, it's accepted that a batsman needs a few moments to get himself together, but at some point he should have been told to get on with it and keep the game moving. In keeping with the 'ask the oppo skipper' line of thought, I thought that a batsman should ask the oppo skipper if he can halt play while he gets some respite from the physio. Now, I can hear you saying that a skipper like Ponting would rather see a batsman writhing on the deck in a pool of blood before he'd allow the batsman time with the physio. Therefore I would say, give that role to the neutral people on the field....the umpires.
2. In a similar light to my point above, the 12th man occasionally runs on to the field for a variety of reasons; change of gloves, change of bat, deliver messages from the captain, giving the batsman water etc. This role of the 12th man is part of cricket (as Sir H mentioned) and there's no reason to stop that. The problem is all about timing, particularly when time is of the essence at the end of a five day game. Again, I would think that the batsman should be given permission by the umpire to halt play while he's tended to by the 12th man. The umpire should be able to make a judgement call on whether it's a ploy to waste time or not.
The idea of the 12th man and physio just running onto the field adhoc, is a bit like someone walking through your front door without knocking or waiting to be invited in. It's polite to wait to be invited in, rather than assuming you just walk in. Any thoughts before I submit my ideas to the ICC?
Matty, last time I saw you, you were driving a flash car around weren't you?
Bonus
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