A generous gesture! That's how the former England captains described India Mahendra Singh Dhoni's decision to call back Ian Bell after he was controversially run out on the third day of the second Test. The India captain was hailed for upholding the spirit of the game and the former skippers felt Bell should have paid for his carelessness.
Ian Botham (Daily Mirror): Ian Bell is a very lucky boy. Having been legitimately run out by the Indians with his mind on a huge round of applause and a cup of tea he had no right to expect to be batting after the break. He was out. I can understand why MS Dhoni withdrew his appeal and decided to go along with the spirit of the game, but I would have had no problem if he had upheld it and sent a message about dopey cricket. If it was me I'd have run him out and let him think long and hard about remaining in his crease until the ball is dead while sitting on the balcony watching others score the runs he should have. It's an arena for big boys. The game should be played fair but it should be played hard and if you don't know the laws then find them out quickly because it is no place to wander about with your head in the clouds.
Geoffrey Boycott (The Daily Telegraph): Ian Bell made a careless and stupid mistake. Don't blame the umpires for carrying out the laws of the game. Don't blame the fielder who stopped the ball, fell over the boundary, picked up the ball and threw it in not sure if it was four or not. And don't blame India for running him out. He was miles out of his crease and out of order marching off for tea. In the end Dhoni and the Indian team did a good thing for cricket because there would have been such ill feeling between the teams for the rest of this Test, the series and the one-dayers to come.
I played in the famous match at Port-of-Spain in Trinidad in 1974 when Alvin Kallicharan was run-out off the final ball of the day's play. He turned away thinking it was the close and Tony Greig threw the stumps down. It was the same as yesterday (Sunday). The umpire did not call time. The batsman assumed wrongly and was given run-out. Overnight the England manager and captain, Donald Carr and Mike Denness, were asked to revoke the appeal. We did it for the good of the game. Some Indian supporters will say Dhoni was weak because it did affect them as, after tea, the bowling, fielding and attitude of India's players all suffered.
Nasser Hussain (The Daily Mail): Ian Bell must learn a very important lesson from all this. Don't ever leave your crease while there is any chance that the ball might be live, under any circumstances. By the letter of the law, Bell was run out, as simple as that. India were well within their rights to take the bails off and appeal. The audio suggests that Asad Rauf had not called 'over' as Bell insisted when he was first given out.
I must say that when I was England captain, in the heat of the battle, I would have appealed, definitely. I would have seen nothing wrong in running out a batsman who had left his crease when it is not clear whether the ball had gone for four. Even when I got back to the dressing room and thought about it I am not sure I would have done what Mahendra Singh Dhoni did and withdrawn the appeal. I would have just said to the batsman: 'You messed up there, not us. Bad luck.'
But if someone like Duncan Fletcher, who was involved in India's decision, had then sat me down and said: 'Nass, this doesn't look good. I think we should call the batsman back here,' then there is every chance I would have listened to him and changed my mind. Dhoni has not had the best of series, what with his lack of runs, his poor keeping and India's poor over-rates. In one fell swoop he has changed all that and will be lauded for this. His gesture in the best interests of the game will be remembered for a long time.
Michael Vaughan (The Daily Telegraph): Run out or not. Spirit of cricket or not. Day three was the day England won the series. They proved they are a better team than India and convinced me they will definitely be the No 1 team in the world. The way they bullied India was reminiscent of the great Australian team of the past. They bossed them on the field and even managed to convince India that Ian Bell should be given another chance ' a brilliant performance in every respect.
Bell was dozy and he knew it. He saw Praveen Kumar's reaction on the boundary and thought it had gone for four. But crucially the umpire had said nothing. He did not call four and he did not call tea. When the bails were taken off and Bell turned round to see what was happening he knew he had made a mistake. It was then that he actually played the situation very well. He knew he had messed up but outwardly gave a very cool impression of not really knowing what all the fuss was about.
The England players were telling him to come off the field quickly and he did his best to get back to the pavilion. When he was given out Bell would have been blaming everyone but himself.
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