Batsmen must stand alone now
Runners provided some of the most quirky and comic moments on the cricket field but the suspicions of abuse may have prompted the ICC to ban them, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian .
Siddhartha Talya
25-Feb-2013
Runners provided some of the most quirky and comic moments on the cricket field but the suspicions of abuse may have prompted the ICC to ban them, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.
It is a debate that has been rumbling on for several years, brought to a head perhaps by the issue not of pulled muscles or, say, a foot damaged by a special from Lasith Malinga, but of cramp, something particularly highlighted in a Centurion Champions League match between South Africa and England a couple of years back, when the South African captain, Graeme Smith, cramping after scoring a century, was refused a runner, AB de Villiers, by Andrew Strauss who reasoned that after a long innings in hot conditions, a batsman is going to be drained and that it wasn't that serious anyway.
Siddhartha Talya is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo