Foster v Flower: a reality check for the game's moral minority

No sooner had the latest spat to besmirch international cricket abated than there were two contrasting reactions. The first, which was coincidental, came from the game's new all-singing, all-dancing, all-powerful governing body and advocated that players should walk when they know they are out.

The second, which was instinctive, came from those directly involved in the game and amounted to the conviction that walking would take place only over their dead bodies. All the morality lies with the attitude of the International Cricket Council, but the reality resides with the players, as well as umpires and referees who have to deal with it.

In unveiling their future plans last week and anticipating their executive board meeting in Kuala Lumpur this week, the ICC's chief executive, Malcolm Speed, expressed noble sentiments about the spirit of cricket, the responsibility of captains along with the desire to keep cricket fiercely competitive. "What we seek," he said, "is to remove sledging and excessive appealing entirely. We would like to see more players walk when they know they are out, to respect the spirit of the game and accept a fieldsman's word when he says he has caught the ball."

This was swiftly counterbalanced. The former England batsman, Allan Lamb, for instance, conceded that it was difficult but added: "Nobody walks. It just doesn't happen." During a stint on Sky Television, the Lancashire and former England batsman, Neil Fairbrother, said: "You wait for the umpire to give you out, it's his job."

If the ICC were expecting unequivocal backing from umpires they will be disappointed. Peter Willey, favourite to become a member of the new elite panel of eight umpires who will officiate in all Tests from April, spluttered incredulously at the suggestion that professionals would go voluntarily. "Not a chance," he said. "It doesn't work like that any more."

The recurring theme was given fresh impetus by the Harare argy-bargy last Sunday involving Andy Flower, Nasser Hussain and James Foster. When Flower was on 49, Foster had an appeal for a catch turned down. The pair exchanged barbs and Hussain took it upon himself to have his tuppenceworth. At 99, Flower again survived a strident appeal for a catch and this time Foster, without Hussain's support, was incandescent.

Not only were words exchanged, fingers were pointed. It was distinctly unsavoury, though Hussain later described the dispute as "pure handbags". Television replays supported Foster's appeals on both occasions, though he might note that they did not do so after Alistair Campbell was adjudged caught down the leg-side yesterday. But his reactions were extremely naïve at best and the reprimands for him, Flower and Hussain were the least they could expect.

In theory, walking would solve everything, in practice it is sadly unworkable. Only in the Sixties did it become briefly de rigueur. Pure coincidence, surely, that it was around the the time of Helen Shapiro's hit, "Walking Back to Happiness".

Willey, one of only two men to have played in and umpired more than 20 Tests, is as reliable a witness as there is available. "I've not had a problem with sledging," he said. "And I don't expect batsmen to walk. Nobody does. When I first started playing you got a rollocking if you didn't walk. I remember in my early days David Steele was one who never walked. But then he never once whinged when a decision went against him."

There lies the key. Willey, like all top umpires, is willing to make decisions, he knows that occasionally he will get them wrong. All he asks is that players accept them. Thus, confrontation can be avoided. The idea of the elite panel is that fewer bad decisions will be made.

"Television is at the heart of most things with all the replays," he said. "It is pressure but the players would all do well to remember that they're playing a game and the impressions they create. Steve Waugh has been magnificent in his attitude, as was Mark Taylor before him. They accept it and get on with it. Umpires have to be backed but I don't mind taking the decision if that's the job. Mind you, it's coming to something when they nick it to second slip and still stand there."

By and large, for better or worse, a consensus has emerged. Take two examples in England's recent history. One of the greatest innings played by Michael Atherton was against South Africa at Trent Bridge in 1998. He made 98 not out and England won the match and went on to win the series. Yet he was only 27 when he appeared to glove a lifter from Allan Donald, coming round the wicket. Atherton did not move, the umpire did not give him out. It was a match and series-turning decision but Donald was later to say in his book, White Lightning: "He knew he'd gloved it... I had no problems with Athers... he was batting for his country and entitled to stand his ground."

Last winter and in the preceding summer, Hussain had a horrendous run of poor decisions. Then, in Kandy, against Sri Lanka he made a gritty 109 which helped to win the match, but at 52 and 62 he got bat on balls which were claimed as short-leg catches and given not out.

And then there was another former England batsman who was once on 99 and then, as he said: "I was caught at the wicket, a really fine catch too but the umpire turned down the stumper's confident appeal, and although I knew I was out I had no qualms about continuing to my hundred, and then piling on as many runs as I could." So it says in Close Of Play, the autobiography of Les Ames, who played the last of his 45 Tests in 1938.

The recent reissue of the former England captain Mike Brearley's insightful book, The Art of Captaincy, also brought a reminder that not walking is as old as the game. "On the whole," Brearley wrote, "I prefer the pre-War attitude, shared, as far as I can gather, between amateurs and professionals alike, namely that the occasions on which a batsman is wrongly adjudged not out are balanced more or less equally by those on which he is mistakenly given out; and that the umpire is there to decide. And I always insisted that the most crucial aspect of the whole matter was that we should accept the umpires' decisions." The ICC, Hussain and television might have to bear that in mind.