It means nothing to modern players

Delhi Capitals’ Ravichandran Ashwin

To run or not to run? The controversy surrounding Ravichandran Ashwin's decision to take the extra run off an overthrow that deflected off the non-striker has already divided opinions in the cricket world.

Shane Warne has spoken and he has labelled it a disgrace. This from the man who missed the 2003 World Cup with a drugs ban and was also fined for accepting money from a bookmaker in return for providing pitch information. Then there was his shirt-pulling incident with Marlon Samuels in a Big Bash game where he made aggressive physical contact with an opponent. No wonder Ashwin is indignant.

It's nonsense

Cricket has a decision to make about this Spirit of Cricket nonsense. And nonsense it is. It means nothing to the modern professional cricketer. A vague set of words that contain no real enforcement powers other than relying on some quaint, outdated traditions that are opaque and redundant in franchise cricket especially.

Cricket is now a pragmatic game in every sense, on and off the field. It is a business. A risk versus reward equation, from the squad you ‘buy' to the player rotation/rest policy to whether you abandon a cricket tour because you don't trust local security advice. Risk v reward. Simple as that.

So as a fielder, if you decide to chance your arm for a possible run-out opportunity, in that split second, you make a decision. Do I hang on to it or let rip? We coach kids all the time to do one or the other based on that split-second decision. The upside is a run-out that can turn a match on its head. Downside? Overthrows, with or without a deflection. Risk v reward. What's so controversial about that?

If it had struck Rishabh Pant and deflected onto the stumps (and Pant was caught short), would Eoin Morgan have withdrawn the appeal? Are we seriously expected to believe that the Spirit of Cricket would have been invoked to reprieve the batter? If you don't want to risk overthrows, hold on to it then. It's the safe option without the upside or the downside. Risk v reward.

Too partial

This is the same sport that has no problem with non-strikers blatantly ‘stealing' ground (cheating?) when they are backing up, but there is a moral code that governs the bowler doing a Bill Brown? For those who are confused by that reference, Brown was the batsman who was warned for trying to steal an unfair advantage by Indian legend Vinoo Mankad and was then run out when he failed to heed the warning.

That's why the Spirit of Cricket is now a dinosaur. It once roamed the green fields of England when there were pompous notions of "fair play" by an Empire that epitomised anything but in their colonisation policy. But if the laws still allow non-strikers to deliberately gain an unfair advantage without penalty (and even going so far as to cede them the moral high ground if they pay the ultimate price for deception), it is difficult to view this latest incident through a commonsense lens.

The game invests millions in technology to determine whether a batter or fielder has touched the line with super-slow-motion freeze frame technology. We have Hot Spot which senses the tiniest of edges. We have the irony of watching a no-ball being scrutinised to see if a fraction of the heel is behind the line, but in the background, the non-striker is already out of the frame. That's how far he is cheating. In athletics, it results in instant disqualification. In cricket, it is the bowler who is vilified for playing by the rules, but against the spirit?

It's about time cricket grows up. And the cricketers will follow. The unseemly exchanges involving luminaries of the world game from three countries required the intervention of the classy Dinesh Karthik to rescue the situation. That's what the spirit of cricket looks like!

Michael Jeh is a Brisbane-based former first-class player