to walk

I don’t believe in walking.

That may surprise you as I’m Australian.

I believe umpires are paid to umpire, and blah blah, you get it.

But last night I saw the worst case of walking ever.

Hashim Amla was caught (allegedly) by Michael Vaughan.

He walked, about 55 metres.

Then he stopped when Mickey Arthur and Graeme Smith had hissy fits.

If Amla wants to walk, he can, but once he walks, he is out.

He can’t then turn on his heel and ask the umpires to make a decision.

If he had stood his ground, he would have allowed the umpires to make the decision.

He didn’t, he took that out of their hands, and walked, which is fine, but that is final Charlie Brown.

Harpers furrowed brow had shown us that he had some doubt to the legitimacy of the grab.

But Amla had made his decision, he had trusted Vaughan, for better or worse, and that is his problem.

Why Billy allowed him to come back on is anyones guess, perhaps Billy thought it would be better for his after dinner speaking engagements if he did.

The grey area is that walking has never been clearly defined in the rules, how far can you walk before you have said you are out.

I played against a guy once who nicked one in front of first slip, the keeper caught it, the guy took 3 steps, stopped, walked back and the umpire gave him not out.

I don’t know how many steps constitutes a walk, but I think Amla had them covered, but it would be nice to know for the future.

I’d suggest once you’re off the cut strip, you’re off.www.cricketwithballs.com

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