Cricinfo - Blogs - Different Strokes - The Oval Test (but not the one you have in mind)

Pay attention, then, if you will, to the closing moments of this Test in this linked YouTube
video, pay attention from 3:15 onwards. India need two runs to win.
It's 170 for 4. Farokh Engineer and Ali are at the crease. After hearing out
Engineer's advice that he stay calm and knock off the single required, Ali
square cuts for four. As the crowd invades the pitch, the players scramble
for the pavilion, but only after the obligatory scramble for stumps.

Here is where things get interesting. Ali is rushing off, but without a
stump, and so, tries to take a stump from Alan Knott, presuming that stumps are
victor's booty. Knott, however, is having none of it, and a little tugging
match ensues (there are some verbals but obviously, we can't hear those).
Finally, Ali, who was not expecting this resistance, turns and sprints for
the bowler’s end, where the stumps are still standing. Knott turns and gives
the stump to the umpire coming up behind him. After this, the video shifts
to scenes of the milling crowd carrying Engineer on their shoulders, and
then cuts to a black and white photograph of the Indian team. I do not
know what happened to Ali and whether he managed to get himself a
little souvenir.

I've played and replayed this little clip and still don't know what to
make of it. I know a similar scene would not occur today. For one thing, a
losing team simply does not bother with the stumps. Secondly, it is hard
to imagine a losing team's player actually resisting a winning team's
player's attempts to obtain a trophy even if the stump happened to be in
his possession. It is even more unlikely that the player, having
successfully resisted the invading marauder, would then turn around and
hand the stump over to the umpire.

So, what was Knott up to? Was he disapproving of the process of
trophy-grabbing? Was he simply collecting stumps to make sure they didn't
go to the crowd? Would Knott have resisted an Australian player's
attempts to obtain a trophy? Were crowd invasions a new enough thing in
England at the time that the "right thing" for Knott to do was to make
sure they stayed with the umpires after the game was over?

These questions might seem trivial, but answers to them would be useful I
think, in figuring out English players' perceptions of various opposition
teams, the proprieties of souvenir hunting, the changes in crowd behavior
as a function of the success of teams other than Australia in England, and
lastly, the changing standards of player behavior on the field (on what
was considered proper and what wasn't).

Knott's actions appeared to be petty and ungenerous to me, but perhaps he
knew of no other way to react, and perhaps my perception of his actions as
such, reveal a great deal of how much the cricket world has changed since
that memorable day in 1971.

With the Ashes in the balance it's time to remember a cricket match which happened in 1882. Not the Australian victory at the Oval in the only test that year which led to mock obituary bemoaning the death of English cricket, but another which took place a few days before on 29 July 1882. That day Scotland beat Australia at cricket! It is said that Billy Murdoch’s tourists were so incensed by that loss, that they went out and thrashed the English in response a month later.

The story is not entirely simple, however. Australia was to play a three-day match against the Scots but hammered them by an innings and 18 runs inside two.

But that was not the end of the affair. The canny Scots, faced with the prospect of returning money to a sell-out crowd for the third day, persuaded the Aussies to play a one-day match on the Saturday, and this time the Scots got up, thanks largely to its captain, Leslie Balfour who scored 73 runs. It is nice story.

Well i really must support the under tones of this article. To say someone is a good bloke is well and good, but to whom are we good. The social superiority complex of certain countries and the way they play the game still today can leave a lot to be desired, but quite honestly some 37 years ago it was just plain horrid. Certainly to souvenir a stump may not have been the best of behavior, but i will bet good bloke or not, if he had refused Ian Chappell a stump he would have been dressed down in no uncertain terms.
The part of this article that is encouraging is that India could come back and win after a poor first innings. There is still hope for the fifth test. Looks like a good toss to have one, hands up all those who are sick of these crappy test pitches damaging the profile of test cricket, don't worry about T20, we are killing test cricket in so many other ways it is not funny.