
Brydon Carse sparked much mirth with his antics while bowling to Shubman Gill, but was he attempting to distract the India batter, and if so, should he have been punished?
For the second time in two Tests, England chose to bowl on a pitch that looked friendly to batters, and for the second time in two Tests, Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal cashed in. The pair put on a half-century stand before the latter fell for 87, and England, and Carse, were seemingly getting experimental in their methods to find a wicket.
In the 34th over of the innings, Carse pointed his left arm out as he ran in, prompting Gill to pull out of his stance. Carse bowled anyway, but the ball was called dead. Next ball, Carse thought he had his man, pinning Gill on the pad and wheeling away in celebration before turning to appeal. The umpire was unmoved, and England’s review revealed a small inside-edge.
However, had Gill been given out, there may have been questions over Carse’s actions in his run-up, the England quick this time running in with his tongue hanging out, evoking his former countryman Darren Gough. Law 41 deals with Unfair Play, with Clause 41.4 explicitly forbidding a “deliberate attempt to distract the striker”.
If the umpires decide there has been such an attempt, they are to award five penalty runs to the batting side, rule dead ball and cancel out any dismissals, and report the incident to the match referee.
Was Carse attempting to distract the striker?
Whether Carse should have been punished is a matter to debate, and something for the umpires to decide. The laws state that any distraction must be deliberate, as considered by the umpires.
There have been instances of bowlers adopting run-ups for comedy purposes, usually at the end of dead games. For example, Alastair Cook imitated Bob Willis’ run-up at the end of the 2014 Trent Bridge Test, shortly before dismissing Ishant Sharma for his only international scalp.
However, there is also precedent for a bowler’s run-up being punished. Former India U19 spinner Shiva Singh introduced an occasional spin to his run-up in an Under-23 tournament in 2018, with the umpire signalling dead ball when he did so.
The MCC backed up the umpire and suggested run-up deviations could be considered deliberate distractions. “The Law states that the offence is the attempt to distract the striker, rather than the striker actually being distracted,” the MCC said in a statement. “Consequently, it was for the umpire to decide if he felt that the tactic was done as an attempt to distract the striker.
“Unless the 360-degree twirl was part of the bowler’s run-up for every ball, the umpire may need to consider whether he/she feels that the twirl was done in an attempt to distract the batsman in some way. This is particularly so if there was no apparent advantage to be gained from the twirl, unlike, for example, the bowler varying the width of the release point or the length of his/her run-up, which are entirely lawful.”
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