Tony Becca

THE FOURTH day's play of the first Test between West Indies and India at the Antigua Recreation Ground on Monday belonged to Wasim Jaffer, Ian Bradshaw and Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

Unfortunately for them, however, their deeds - a brilliant double century, a marathon bowling spell and some magnificent hitting - were overshadowed by a controversial catch and an embarrassing delay that lasted for almost 15 minutes as the umpires, the television umpire, the West Indies captain, the fielder and the two batsmen, in a display that once again demonstrated the weakness of cricket and those who govern the game, argued whether (according to the laws of the game) the catch was taken or not.

After hitting left-arm wrist spinner Dave Mohammed for three successive sixes, Dhoni went for number four, skied the ball and Daren Ganga, running to his right on the mid-wicket boundary, caught the ball.

EMBARRASSMENT TO THE GAME

What happened after that was an embarrassment to the game.

Standing umpire Asad Raul was not convinced that the catch was taken, and he obviously was not sure whether, in taking the catch, Ganga had stepped on the boundary. He checked with his colleague Simon Taufel, who obviously was also not sure, and they referred it to the television umpire, Billy Doctrove.

After an eternity, Doctrove said that based on the television images, he could not tell. All hell broke loose with the umpires conferring again and going back and forth to Doctrove, with West Indies' captain Brian Lara talking to the umpires, with Ganga talking to the batsmen, with Lara talking to Dhoni and saying that Ganga said he caught the ball and had not stepped on the boundary, with the umpires eventually ruling Dhoni not out, with Ganga talking to Dhoni, Dhoni, who later said that Ganga had told him that he was not sure what had happened, accepted Ganga's word and walked away. After that, or so it seemed, India called the declaration.

In what was an embarrassing 15 minutes for the game, almost everyone involved, but for Dhoni, who hit the ball, and Ganga, who caught the ball, made a mistake.

Doctrove, for example, should have signalled not out the moment he could not confirm that the catch, according to the law, was taken cleanly. Even if he did not, after he had said that he was not sure, instead of going back to him, instead of talking to each other for a long time, instead of listening to Lara, on-the-field umpires Raul and Taufel should have ruled ? and they should have ruled not out.

And as far as Lara is concerned, he should not have been allowed to get away with snatching the ball from the umpire and throwing it at the stumps.

ONLY IN CRICKET

Had that happened in a football match, had a footballer reacted that way to a referee?s decision and shown that sort of disrespect for a referee, he would have been given marching orders. Had someone else done what Lara did, he at least would have been fined a percentage of his match fee.

What was really interesting, however, was the way the problem was solved.

Although cricket is no longer a gentleman's game, even though a player can tell a lie when it suits him to do so, and although, despite Ricky Ponting?s suggestion that it be so, Test captains recently voted not to accept a player's word but to leave it to the umpires, Dhoni, listening to Lara, accepted Ganga's word and gave himself out.

That could only happen in cricket.