How can a batsman be allowed to blatantly take a start, when run outs are often decided by fractions of an inch? © Getty Images

Forgive me for continuing to bang on about the same topic but if international cricketers (and the system that governs them) keep repeating the same behaviours, perhaps it’s necessary to keep bringing the same matter up for discussion. In my most recent blog, we discussed the Mankading incident involving Lahiru Thirimanne and whether the liberties that batsmen are taking constitute cheating or gamesmanship.

Yesterday in Hobart, Sri Lanka were quick to remind Michael Hussey that backing up too far was a global phenomenon and not unique to Sri Lanka. Despite Hussey looking a bit bemused when the umpire gave him a friendly warning via Mahela Jayawardene, video evidence clearly showed that Hussey was indeed guilty of stealing a few centimetres, by accident or design.

Today in Wellington, the issue was elevated from the sublime to the ridiculous when Lonwabo Tstotsobe was no-balled for overstepping the line and the video replay showed that a part of his heel was actually behind the line, although to be fair, it might have looked different from where the umpire was standing. This tiny fraction of a centimetre was enough to cost him a “free hit” which can prove to be a costly mistake. What was interesting though was that the replay showed the batsman, Kane Williamson, backing up a long way out of his crease at the time that Tsotsobe’s foot was deemed to be a centimetre too short for the umpire’s liking. So whilst the bowler is penalised for being a fraction over the line, the batsmen can be a few feet past the line and there is very little that the game can do to stop this blatant cheating.

Why is the bowler not given a warning that his foot was over the line in much the same way that the batsmen are expected to be warned when they are deliberately stealing a few precious centimetres? I’m afraid I no longer subscribe to the theory that it is accidental. It’s happening too often for it to be accidental. In an era where run outs are adjudicated on by the third umpire and it often comes down to a tiny margin, almost a video frame, there must be some way to ensure that batsmen aren’t taking the mickey.

Maybe for every run out involving the non-striker, they should pan back to the bowler’s end and calculate the distance that the batsman was in front of the crease and deduct it from the distance by which he made his ground. After all, if you take a short run, even by the tiniest of margins, you have that run deducted from your score. So what’s the difference between a short run and a batsman deliberately starting with an unfair advantage?

Cricket needs to find a way to eliminate these anomalies because it is a game decided by the smallest of margins. The difference between a nick and a play and miss is too small to even measure by a method other than Hot Spot or Snicko. We waste a lot of time on replays trying to figure out if a fielder on the boundary grazed the rope with any part of his body. Run outs and stumpings are sometimes decided by a split video frame. LBW decisions referred to the third umpire are subject to a fine line as to where the ball pitched. No-balls are called on the tightest of margins. Just about everything in the game relies on wafer-thin margins and yet, this aspect of the game remains open to blatant abuse.

Most other professional sports don’t allow deliberate flouting of the lines of demarcation. Tennis, athletics, golf and a host of other sports that I haven’t even thought of would surely not allow a competitor to deliberately be a foot over the line or off the mark. Can you imagine a golfer moving his putt a foot closer to the hole? Or a long jumper being allowed to leap from a long way past the mark? Or a rugby player being granted a try when he grounds the ball way in front of the line?

Perhaps the answer lies in dispensing with the notion of warning the batsman before you run him out. No other aspect of the game requires a warning before a penalty is incurred. It was a quaint and gentlemanly tradition in an era when backing up too far may well have been an absent-minded action but I’m too much of a cynic to think that this is not a deliberate ploy to steal an unfair advantage. It happens too often for it to be an accident. If it is an accident, it makes cricket a poorly administered sport that allows it to continue without some remedy. That’s not acceptable when the rules of the sport rely on precision to the nth degree.

India's withdrawal of the appeal speaks volumes of the maturity shown by Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar even in the heat of battle © Getty Images

The incident involving Lahiru Thirimanne and the almost-‘Mankad’ run-out by R Ashwin provides the perfect platform for an intellectual debate about the difference between gamesmanship and sportsmanship in an ancient game that has almost outgrown its antiquated value system.

India's withdrawal of the appeal speaks volumes of the maturity shown by Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar even in the heat of battle. Their cool-headed wisdom, coupled with sensible umpiring, avoided creating an incident that would inevitably have polarised two close neighbours and would almost certainly have led to bad blood that would have lingered on for some time. Well done India.

It does beg the philosophical question though that at what point does a team or individual cross that fine line between being villain or hero, opportunist or cheat, playing to the rules as opposed to playing within the rules?

If Thirimanne had been given out in that circumstance, there would almost certainly have been a hue and cry about India's disregard for a very traditional act of sportsmanship. If it had indeed been carelessness on the batsman's part, it would have seen the Indians cast as villains. Clearly though, Thirimanne was either prone to carelessness on a grand scale or he was deliberately trying to steal an unfair advantage. If it was the latter, who would then be cast as the new villain or hero in this soap opera?

Look at it another way. Most run-outs are decided by a few centimetres so if Thirimanne's actions were deliberate, do we applaud him for getting away with it or do we vilify him for deliberately taking an unfair liberty? After all, a bowler needs to be only a fraction over the line and he cops the indignity of a free-hit. How is that different from a batsman deliberately stealing a few precious inches?

Would it be such a dastardly act if India stuck to their appeal, if they genuinely felt that Thirimanne had been warned and was still oblivious to the fact that he was continually out of his ground? Why was Thirimanne still doing it? Genuine naivete or was he trading on the notion that he could get away with it because the repercussions of a ‘Mankad’ would have been too much of a PR disaster for India?

Cricket has this duality of morality issue that is yet unresolved across so many issues. If it is okay for a batsman to intentionally back up too far so he can avoid being run out on a sharp single, is it also okay for a fielder to touch the rope with his feet (so long as he can get away with it)? Generally speaking, that is frowned upon if the fielder knew the truth. It is considered poor form to not signal a boundary if your body even grazed the rope so why is it not equally poor form to back up to the extent we saw yesterday?

Why do we still have a debate about whether batsmen should walk when they nick one to the wicketkeeper? Is honesty the key value at stake - if you know you nicked it and choose to stand your ground, why is it so different to claiming a catch that may have just bounced in front of you? What about someone who appeals for a catch that he clearly knows is not out - is that acceptable because it's upto the umpire to spot the mistake? What essentially is the difference between that and confessing to the umpire that the ball hasn't carried or has touched the boundary rope?

How did cricket come to this situation where we place different premiums on different aspects of truth and honesty? Clearly, some truths are more valued than others, a curious ethical conundrum if ever there was one.

It might indeed be a good thing for the sport if Thirimanne is made aware that his penchant to go walkabout, whether by accident or by design, is bound to end in tears soon. The next time he does it, he probably won't even need to be warned. He has already enjoyed that privilege. Perhaps the lad is genuinely unaware of just how much of an advantage he is 'accidentally' gaining but if he starts making a habit of it, he will create an international incident that could be avoided. Only he knows whether his repeated infringements on Tuesday were deliberate or accidental - we'll never know the real truth.

On the matter of truth and Indians, perhaps it is fitting that we quote one of the greatest Indians of all time. His wisdom may well put cricket's curious double standards, when it comes to different types of integrity, into focus.

"Truth stands even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained. Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear," - Mahatma Gandhi.

Romesh Kaluwitharana: the stats don't quite match the legend © Getty Images

Nostalgia can indeed be a seductive mistress, can she not? Watching Sri Lanka dismantling the Australian bowling attack in Sydney tonight, I heard Tony Greig waxing lyrical about the feats of Romesh Kaluwitharana in the 1996 World Cup. Greig's insinuation was that Kalu's breathtaking innings at the top of the order in that tournament were the catalyst for the new style of opening in ODIs. It is easy to be fooled into thinking that Kalu set the world alight and got Sri Lanka off to some amazing starts, but my distant memory forced me to check the facts.

Truth is, Kalu actually had a pretty average World Cup as a batsman. His scores, listed here as runs/balls faced, were: 0/1, 26/16, 33/18, 8/3, 0/1, 6/13.

They certainly weren't slow starts but, apart from the 33 against Kenya, his contributions could hardly be considered significant. It's easy to remember him as that explosive little stick of dynamite but if you actually look at his scores during that season, even leading into the World Cup, the numbers tell a very different story.

It seems the Kalu legend was born in the Benson & Hedges Series in Australia, a few months before that World Cup. He made three half-centuries in that series, but when you actually look at those games his strike-rate was not that high. Not as high as the legend suggests anyway. Here are his runs/balls faced stats: 8/21, 0/4, 8/14, 0/1, 77/75, 20/27, 50/54, 74/68, 13/9, 0/1.

Even the three significant scores he made were virtually at a run-a-ball, a far cry from the sort of strike-rates that we are now accustomed to in the modern game. Admittedly, in that era, the boundaries were long and the cricket bats not that powerful, but I still maintain that the Kaluwitharana myth has grown despite the reality.

Don't get me wrong, I loved watching him bat. I'm not knocking the bloke. My point is that despite the hype and awe that his name evokes, the truth is that he wasn't quite the "excitement machine" that Michael Slater described him as when he was responding to Tony Greig's comments about Kalu. In 102 ODIs, his strike-rate was 77.70 and his average was 22.20.

It's almost the reverse of the point I made about Jacques Kallis in my piece a few weeks ago. Kallis is one of those cricketers whose numbers are phenomenal but he never quite gets the international acclaim. He averages 45.55 at a strike-rate of 72.96 in his long ODI career. Yet we'd never describe him as an excitement machine.

Even Slater himself, fondly remembered as a swashbuckling strokeplayer, had an ODI average of 24.07 with a strike-rate of 60.40. Mark Taylor, stodgy in comparison to Slater, had a strike-rate of 59.46. Wonder why it is that we seem to remember players in different ways, despite the facts suggesting that there wasn't much to separate them really?

Let's think of someone like David Warner, a thrashing machine if ever there was one. He averages 20.07 in ODIs with a strike rate of 78.71. I expected his strike-rate to be much higher than that I must confess. Perhaps the true test will be at the end of his career when he has had time to carve out some consistency; but for a bloke who strikes at 142.00 in Twenty20 internationals, he just can't seem to get close to that in the 50-over format, despite having four more Powerplay overs at his disposal. Curious....

I'd love to hear your contributions to this debate. Can you think of any cricketers who have a reputation that doesn't quite match the cold hard facts? Kalu is certainly one such player; his reputation seems to have been forged on the back of his stunning Test match debut against Australia. I remember Allan Border describing that innings to me; he seemed to suggest that for those few hours that Kalu unleashed his magic the Aussies were wondering if this was the next Don Bradman, such was his amazing strokeplay. What a shame he didn't repeat that again in his short and 'explosive' career. There we go again with adjectives that don't quite fit reality!

Joe Dawes was a cricketer who had to fight his way through the system © Getty Images

Joe Dawes was announced yesterday as India's new bowling coach. I've already read a few blog comments on various cricket websites and online newspapers, and some Indian fans are understandably a bit nervous about who they are getting to fill Eric Simons' shoes. I'm here to put your minds at ease - worry not folks, this is one appointment that will reap rich dividends soon.

Let me state my bias upfront so there's no question of me offering a neutral opinion. I've known Joey since we first started playing cricket together at Valleys CC in Brisbane back in 1995. We've been good mates ever since and we've even worked together. So the opinions I offer suffer from undoubted bias but they also benefit from an intimate knowledge of the man himself. It cuts both ways.

I won't even begin to address his technical competence because, frankly, I don't understand what it takes to coach bowling at this level. Suffice to say that he has all the qualifications and experience but it's how he imparts that knowledge and then gets players to execute those skills under pressure that will impress you. Just wait and see.

I rate Joey's coaching skills highly because he was a cricketer who had to fight his way through the system to get to where he is right now. He was one of the last players to come through the old-fashioned way of playing grade cricket, having to take lots of wickets and forcing his way into first-class cricket on the back of sheer weight of performance.

He was almost the last of that generation of club cricketer who found his way into the Sheffield Shield squad through consistent club performances. Many of today's contracted players come through the academies and junior talent ID programs, making Under-19 representative teams along the way and migrating onto the contract list via that path. It's almost like we've invested so much in them that it's a waste of money to not migrate them into the senior squad. Some modern cricketers have hardly played senior club cricket; their talent was spotted early, they were coached from the age of 13 or so, and they just kept making representative teams as they fulfilled their own prophecies.

Not so Joey Dawes. He was never really in the mix until the selectors simply could not ignore his consistent haul of club wickets, at a time when Queensland's bowling stocks were rich indeed. They didn't really need to go looking for another fast bowler but Joey forced them to pick him. He did it on the back of a sudden spurt of self-improvement, increased fitness and an amazing discovery of a few extra yards of pace. At the height of his career, he was as quick as anyone going around in Shield cricket (at a time when Australia had fast bowling depth to burn) and he bowled a "heavy ball”. I've faced him often enough in the nets to now understand what that term means. My bruised ribs testify to that. It is this life experience that will benefit the Indian bowling unit - Joey understands how to bring on a latent talent that for whatever reason has been unfulfilled.

His past career as a policeman will also be an asset to him. He has that curious mix of empathy and caring, which police officers often have in their character make-up, aligned with a no-nonsense, no bullshit mentality that has probably been honed by what he experienced on the beat. He is brutally honest in the way he gets his point across but that honesty always carries with it a ready willingness to fix the problem. He once had to call me and tell me I was dropped from an A Grade final and it was a fairly simple phone call. No waffling around the edges, just the simple truth that I was going to be 12th man because my performance the previous week wasn't good enough. As miffed as I was to miss out on selection, I appreciated the fact that there weren't any other limp excuses trotted out to cushion the blow. "Not good enough" was a clear message. What struck me later, though, was that the next time I was in the nets with him he actually came up with strategies to help me improve.

That's the sort of straight-talking honesty that the Indian squad can expect from their new bowling coach. Honest, direct, straight to the point with no frills around the truth. Equally, his life experience on and off the field allows him to communicate effectively with players who aren't necessarily born with a silver spoon in their mouths. Mark my words - he will bring on a couple of young quicks who have latent talent but have been languishing on the periphery. He has walked a mile in their shoes.

Joey was instrumental in helping me to design a "lifeskills" programme for elite athletes that I now run across the country. His input at design and execution stage was invaluable because he was able to cut through political correctness and identify issues that were relevant to young athletes from all sports. When confronted by young men with oversized egos, Joey had no problem with cutting them down to size. Equally, I've seen him counsel young female athletes who needed a sympathetic ear and empathy (not necessarily sympathy) and his gentleness surprised me on more than one occasion. As someone who is almost the polar opposite of him in every respect, my friendship with him is a curious one. He's never played cricket the way I did (he didn't have to - he bowled fast!) but the fact that we're both MCC members hinted at a shared philosophy for cricket that we still have in common.

What to expect from India’s new bowling coach? Discipline and honesty. He will hold players accountable for their results and work ethic. He will see through lame excuses and lazy habits. He will be open to helping anybody but I suspect he won't pander to spoiled young men looking for the easy way in and out of the Indian team. Biased though I am, I think Indian cricket will be better for his input, not just as a bowling coach but as a bloke who has lived a life outside the game too. Hard but fair. India have got themselves a good 'un this time. Just don't let him anywhere near your batsmen or they'll all be trying to bash the ball over midwicket!

Saving up for a mad dash in the final overs isn't always recommended on Australian grounds © AFP

I'm no mathematician. Messrs Duckworth & Lewis clearly have brains vastly superior to mine. Until yesterday, I have largely agreed with their complex system of making a rain-affected target a fair outcome for both teams. Looking at it from a pure layman's perspective though, I cannot understand how India's target the other night at the MCG remained unchanged. Someone, educate me....please.

When the rain came, Australia were struggling at 2 for 35 off 11 overs. India had already benefited from their skill at this point of the game, taking two key wickets at roughly 3 runs-per-over. Australia then batted superbly to score at almost 9 an over, losing only three more wickets in the process. I would have thought (clearly mistakenly) that the brilliance of their post-rain innings would have resulted in a target that was more than the 216 they eventually posted. India had already taken two wickets, so by getting rid of David Warner and Ricky Ponting, they had effectively reduced Australia's firepower. Sadly for them, and great credit to Matthew Wade and the Hussey brothers, Australia were able to recover from this poor start and stage an impressive comeback. Where was the reward for that great recovery?

From a commonsense viewpoint, it seemed to me that India would need to have chased at least 10-15 runs more to compensate for the fact that they knew all along that it was only 32 overs. They could afford to play shots from the very outset because they didn't have to try to bat 50 overs, which is what Warner and Ponting thought they were doing at the start, hence the cautious approach (and some fine bowling from the Kumar duo).

In the end it didn't matter because India were realistically never in the hunt after they lost early wickets. It was the sort of chase that needed a Virender Sehwag or Yuvraj Singh presence. MS Dhoni may have been able to score at that pace but on a big Australian ground, it was always going to be tough to hit sixes at will. I was surprised at Dhoni's reticence to go for the big shot, I must confess. I know he favours the approach of getting within striking distance and then trying to win it in a mad dash but I don't think that works in Australia. The boundaries are too big and you generally won't get too many overs of spin bowled at you at the death. Pakistan batsmen love this approach and they're pretty good at it too but I think Dhoni is making a serious miscalculation by letting the run rate drift too high before launching his assault. He doesn't have the lower-order support to be able to do that over an extended target.

Perth might be one of the few grounds where you can hit sixes straight down the ground and score at 10 an over at the end of a game. Homebush in Sydney, where the first Twenty20 game was played last Wednesday has similar potential for a late flourish. But if India keep choosing to chase runs and adopt a strategy of waiting for the last five overs before they go ballistic, I don't think that strategy will work in this country. Even if Duckworth-Lewis doesn't hurt them in the way I expected it to on Sunday night.

Looking forward to your thoughts on whether Duckworth-Lewis got it right on this occasion.

Brad Hogg: happy to be on the field than off it © Getty Images

That really is the question, isn’t it? Serena Williams recently went on record saying that she dislikes tennis and would much rather shop. The irony is that tennis has made her close to $35 million in prize money, which in Sri Lanka would provide for a large portion of the national health budget.

Once you get over the fact that some professionals probably don’t enjoy the fame, the stardom, the money, the glamour, the paparazzi, and realise that with all that comes the pressure, the constant travelling, being away from loved ones, high-profile failure, media attention and disproportionate dislike from some segments of the population, you begin to realise you’re really better off at your desk. Serena also went on to say she “doesn’t like working out” and also doesn’t really fancy any sort of physical activity. That said, she doesn’t have such a bad record for a couch potato. She is also not alone in taking a large chomp at the digits that provide her sustenance. Andre Agassi, one of the few men to win all four grand slams (five, if you count Steffi Graf), said in his book: “I hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion, and always have.” Imagine what he may have achieved if he actually liked what he did?

Trolling through ESPNcricinfo’s excellent Quote Unquote section, I stumbled across a contrary view from the irrepressible Brad Hogg. “There are people out there digging holes for a living and we're actually playing cricket. So stop whingeing,” he is reported to have told Melbourne Stars coach Greg Shipperd, who criticised the scheduling of the Big Bash League. Despite Williams' and Agassi’s admitted dislike of their sport, they are clearly the more celebrated superstars than the ever-smiling Bradley Hogg. Rightly so, one may argue, because they are both champions many times over, while Hogg is "merely" a good bowling allrounder. Isn’t that the problem, though? Some of those international sportspeople we don’t look at twice may just be the ones we should be looking at. We love the entertainers, the ostensibly successful, on a superficial level.

Hogg will always remain etched in my memory as the perennial competitor. Bowling, as he does, in chinaman style, with that unwavering wide grin on his face, he played the international game in the spirit in which all sport should be played. I remember the incident vividly from several years ago, when Hogg chased a ball to the boundary, slid in to scoop it back, and went into the boundary wall feet first. His technique was impeccable, except that his left foot didn’t land squarely on the wall. As he sliding into the wall, at full pelt, with the camera behind him, we saw replays of Hogg’s ankle turning 180 degrees and the sole of his foot pointing towards the back of his head. The replays confirmed that it was a pretty horrific injury. In real time however, despite suffering that break, Hogg saved the boundary, got up, limp-sprinted back to the ball, got it into his keeper before collapsing in pain. Even he couldn’t bowl that day though.

In an era where we see players who are paid hundreds of thousands of pounds a week, falling over in the European Football Leagues and writhing in pain when replays confirm that they were barely touched by opposing players, it is unfortunate that we don’t venerate the tenacity of players like Hogg. Of course, there are others like him – but they are in the minority.

Recently the Sri Lankan cricket team’s travails, both on and off the field, were well-documented. South African players said they were surprised the team was playing without being paid. In that regard the Sri Lankans deserve a pat on the back. On the flip side however, the delay was with respect to central contractual payments. Match fees and per diems were being paid on time. And a single match fee for, say, an ODI, is worth close to about five middle management executives' monthly wages in corporate Colombo. It’s hardly like the Lankan team were functioning amid the opprobrium of poverty.

So does anybody really like their job? And for us cheering from the sidelines, does cricket mean more than it actually should?

Hogg’s perspective certainly seems rational. You don’t get miners complaining of having to work an extra shift, because they generally could do with the pay. Cricketers complaining of “too much cricket” really need to take a long hard look at themselves lest they appear as distasteful as Serena and Andre.

Yes, there is a lot of cricket being played. But the last I heard, none of it was being played for free. Also, given that one half of the game – on average - is spent (unless you’re AB de Villiers) in the dressing room with your feet up, it hardly seems the most physically demanding of sports. In a relative sense, cricket has got to be one of the least physically demanding of sports. The recent South Africa v Sri Lanka series coverage sported the “Player Tracker”, which analyses how much sprinting, jogging or walking a player does. For the fast bowlers this would go occasionally up to nearly a kilometre of sprinting over a session. Compare that with a football midfielder, who runs close to 15 kilometres, almost non-stop, over 90 minutes.

Cricket’s superstars need to do more to enhance their status as role models. Proactively. Merely not getting caught with your pants down is not enough. Especially in South Asia, where it has far fewer sports to compete with, cricket can be a primary tool in shaping social attitudes. In Australia, England, South Africa and New Zealand, rugby, football and several other sports share the limelight with cricket. Asia’s sporting ambassadors have little or no competition, and like Spiderman before them, they must discharge their great power with great responsibility. Sachin Tendulkar, regardless of his place on batting’s Mt Olympus, has conducted himself exemplarily in this regard. But do we have enough Sachins?

Has Sachin too, apart from being the face of everything, from eggs to car batteries, done enough to promote the sporting values that we should seek to cultivate? Individually his work rate and dedication would suggest he has. It is not his sole responsibility, though. It is also time that we as fans ask ourselves what we expect from the objects of our adoration. Mindless entertainment as a result of their lovelessly honed skill, or role models that we can proudly valourise for our children.