History dictates we give Prior the benefit of the doubt
The footnotes of sporting history are laden with seemingly absurd excuses that might in fact be the plain truth, says Matthew Norman, writing in the Daily Telegraph .
Nikita Bastian
25-Feb-2013
The footnotes of sporting history are laden with seemingly absurd excuses that might in fact be the plain truth, says Matthew Norman, writing in the Daily Telegraph.
When another tennis player, Richard Gasquet of France, blamed his positive cocaine test on being contaminated by a woman he snogged in a Miami bar, everyone ridiculed him. But forensic tests bore his account out to the satisfaction of the ATP.
All in all, then, the inadvertent ricochet theory, be it bat or glove or some mystical combination of the two (where the hell is Hawk-Eye when you need it?), demands the benefit of the doubt; and that Matt should petition the Court of Arbitration for Sport to overrule his ICC reprimand. The anecdotal evidence in his favour is overwhelming. Given how he kept wicket in the second Test, after all, is this a man who can honestly be trusted to judge a bounce of any kind?
Nikita Bastian is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo