Has Erasmus been bribed?

It was bad enough when he gave Hussey out yesterday with absolutely no evidence, and disappointing when Ian Gould repeated the error with Ed Cowan, but his refusal today to agree to a perfect lbw that should have seen Ashwin walking back to the pavilion was breathtaking in its audacity.

Erasmus has been got at.

By the way, what’s happened in SA?   How come Sri Lanka are ahead? 😕

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Author: Bearsy

A Queensland Bear with attitude

12 thoughts on “Has Erasmus been bribed?”

  1. Shocking isn’t it?

    To be fair, 2 wrong decisions per match (so far) is probably about par, tough they both went against the Aussies but I suppose historically wrong decisions have always happened and always will. Was Hussey fined/sanctioned for his behaviour when walking off? Or do they only make decisions after the game? I don’t blame him by the way.

    I watched the LB in real time, I too thought it might have either just clipped or just missed leg stump, (hard to get an idea of where the batsman is in relation to the stumps on TV.) Like Marais, I was wrong 😕

    Which of course brings us to the question of DRS, every test nation except India want it, the sponsors want it, the broadcasters want it and most important of all we, the fans want it. It is time that the cricketing world stopped kow-towing to India and issued a rule (as they did with the no runner and other rule changes recently) that DRS is now part of the game and compulsory. Sod India!

    While I’ve got you, the ‘s’ at the end of leads or trails when the caption reads ‘Australia leads / trails by xxx runs’ seems superfluous. We have a singular noun why the ‘s’? It just looks wrong to me 😕

    Oops, Ponting goes as I type!

  2. How come Sri Lanka are ahead?

    Well that’s the question we were all asking last night, Smith fishing outside his off stump (for the umpteenth time), Rudolph not good enough, Kallis, well he’s allowed to fail now and again, pity it was yesterday, Prince (I’ve always been a fan, watched his provincial debut right here at St George’s all those years ago) just not up to it anymore and our tail? Well, they don’t inspire but they garnered 50 runs between them and did well to avoid the follow-on.

    So, we can bowl and field but the batting needs big changes (Dumminey for Prince, Amla to open, bring in a specialist no.3.)

    We need to bowl SL out for under 200 (they lead by 170 on 1st innings) but even that might be too much.

    SL have never won a test here, that record might just change tomorrow.

  3. In the 18th over of the Australian innings, Zaheer Khan appealed against Ricky Ponting, but was denied. Replays and ball-tracking showed the ball was hitting the middle stump three-fourths of the way up.

    Cricinfo

    Win some lose some ❓

  4. Yes, win some lose some, and Mike Hussey would have been out on review, too, but it would be far better for the game if DRS were compulsory. Trouble is, the Indians are in control of the ICC.

    Thanks for the low-down on your match – fascinating!

    I think we’ll lose tomorrow (I predict Pattinson will be out in the first over of the day), but it will be edge-of-seat stuff for a while, at least. 🙂

  5. By the way, you should be able to get live radio coverage of the SA SL game here (SAFM – Radio 2000)

    The commentators are generally awful (as are most productions on our National Broadcaster) but they keep me up to date when driving. Probably preferable to Cricinfo’s text updates, just 😕

  6. No, I don’t understand why superior technology isn’t embraced in cricket. Of course we suspect it’s because it reduces the chances of skullduggery – but that can’t be the ICC position! In rugby it has certainly cut out a lot of injustices.

  7. Janus :

    No, I don’t understand why superior technology isn’t embraced in cricket. Of course we suspect it’s because it reduces the chances of skullduggery – but that can’t be the ICC position! In rugby it has certainly cut out a lot of injustices.

    It is used in all matches except those in which India is playing. For some strange reason the Indians want to play cricket by 1950s ‘technology’ – i.e. the eyes and ears of the umpires – unless it come to checking whether a bowler has bowled a ‘no-ball’ when they allow 21st century technology…

    … have their cake and eat it comes to mind 🙂

  9. Well, Sipu, yes and no.

    On the one hand –

    • It was gripping stuff watching Hussey, Pattinson and Hilfenhouse put on all those extra runs this morning, Pattinson in particular playing like a top order batsman, and
    • It was even more exciting watching our guys take out the top six wickets in short order; beautifully bowled by all three (Pattinson, Siddle and Hilfenhouse)

    But –

    • It was unpleasant to watch Pattinson, in particular, throw it all out of the window after that in order to bowl short ball bouncers and trade glares and verbal insults with the tail enders. It was bad cricket and worse behaviour. He lost my respect, and the result was that the Indians scored about 50 more than they might have done. The other two also seemed to lose the ability to bowl a proper length after the 7th wicket fell. If I were the bowling coach I would have serious words with them.

    The day also produced even more evidence supporting the compulsory adoption of the DRS. Surely the Indians can see that now? Probably not. Sigh!

  11. It does seem odd that the ICC has surrendered responsibility to the individual nations as to whether to use DRS. I think it is a clash of political cultures. An entirely Western administration would have made a decision, one way or the other whether to adopt it across the board. Within the ICC, they seem to be afraid of upsetting the Asians. I do think it will soon be resolved though. Perhaps your original question was right. Erasmus was bribed, but by factions within the ICC, so that they could force a vote. From what I can gather, his ‘howlers’ were evenly balanced.

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