Australia have just succumbed to a humiliating 0-3 series defeat to Sri Lanka, but one of the biggest talking points of the 3rd Test at the SSC was a piece of glovework by Aussie wicketkeeper Peter Nevill. It had fans divided as to whether it was a piece of brilliant thinking or whether it was an infraction of the spirit of the game.
On Day 4, Lankan batsman Dimuth Karunaratne was dismissed in this unusual way – after getting beaten by a Nathan Lyon delivery that went through to the keeper, he put his body weight forward, lifting his back foot of his crease for the tiniest of an instant, not aware of what Nevill was up to. Behind the stumps, Nevill had collected the ball and kept his hand very close to the stumps, waiting for his opportunity. Just as Karunaratne’s feet left his crease, Nevill knocked the batsman’s stumps down.
After the successful appeal the Australian players were quick to gather around their young keeper and congratulate him on his quick thinking. However, on the social media, the reaction was different. Cricket analysts and fans pointed out how Nevill’s act was lowly as the batsman was not aware of the danger to his wicket. Some pointed out that Karunaratne had probably thought the ball to be dead when he stepped out of his crease, and as such it was unethical.
If you don’t want to get stumped, stay in crease: Nevill
Nevill himself has defended his action, and former Australian cricketers Adam Gilchrist and Mitchell Johnson are some of the others who have upheld the view that what Nevill did was completely overboard.
"I thought he was going to move his foot out of his crease and he did," Nevill has said to ESPNCricinfo. "You might've seen on the footage, I had my hand right by the stumps waiting for that to happen, and it did happen and just worked out well that the timing was just right that it was out.
"Well there's always people who are going to say something like that but I don't think it's contrary to the spirit of cricket. If you don't want to get stumped stay in your crease. You can sort of see, a shifting of weight and you're expecting the back foot to come up. That's the hunch I had and that's what happened. Just managed to get the bails off in time."
A proof of Nevill’s calibre and nothing else
Gilchrist, former Australian wicketkeeper, engaged on Twitter with users who felt that Nevill’s act had been contrary to the spirit of the game. He said that the batsman had just been lazy and that Nevill was well within his right to appeal. Mitchell Johnson tweeted that Nevill had shown exemplary game awareness in flipping the bails off at just the right time.
Nevill himself said that he has pulled off a similar dismissal at least once, in a second XI match. Old footage of Alec Stewart dismissing Brian Lara and Romesh Kaluwitharana dismissing Darren Lehmann hav surfaced since the incident.
Such a dismissal proves the calibre of a wicketkeeper, and nothing else. It is not the keeper’s responsibility to make sure the batsman is aware of the game situation – and timing is a key element in a keeper’s game. The ball is not dead until it is called so.
The stumps can be whipped off by anybody, but it is the keeper’s job to ensure it is done at the right moment – and this is where Nevill excelled on Tuesday.
Tatenda Taibu had shown similar piece of mind in one his earliest matches for Zimbabwe, hovering his hand around the stumps for the batsman to make the error of moving out of his crease. The opportunity never arrived, but Taibu’s cricketing brain had been proved right then. Within an year, he had been made the national team captain.
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