The West Indies U19 qualified for the quarter finals of the World Cup on Tuesday in contentious circumstances, after they claimed a 2-run win over Zimbabwe, with the last wicket having been taken by the controversial dismissal of Mankading.
The incident decided the crucial encounter by a very small margin, and has drawn strong responses from all around the cricket fraternity.
The losing captain left the presentation ceremony in tears, saying that he did not want to talk about the incident. Retired Zimbabwean Brendan Taylor sent out an emotional tweet, warning that the game had a ‘funny way of biting in the back side’.
England batsman Eoin Morgan was among those who were outraged by the act.
34-year-old West Indies pacer Tino Best took affront to Morgan’s tweet, and sent out a caustic tweet in reply:
The ‘wi’ and ‘ppl like u’ puts a racial twist to the matter – Best alleging that it is only because a Windies bowler did the act that someone like Morgan was so shocked by it. He might also have been referring to Morgan being a batsman, but the hint of power dynamics is hard to miss.
Best interpreted the last over act as a bit of tactical genius, as he said in a different tweet:
Best also went on to claim that the ‘Spirit of Cricket’ was on his side of the argument rather than on the Zimbabweans’. He said that as long as batsmen and fielders are allowed to strictly adhere to the rules, so are the bowlers allowed to take the opportunity of an available and perfectly legal dismissal.
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