Read Online Can Anyone Hear Me? by Peter Baxter - Free Book Online Page B

about 6 o’clock we found out why – it had been closed for an hour. Luckily a keeper who was cleaning out a nearby cage was able to let us out.
    Not all memories of Adelaide are as peaceful. In January 1999 England met Sri Lanka in the triangular series of one-day internationals. Muttiah Muralitharan’s relationship with Australia had always been a little strained over the question of his bowling action. He had been no-balled for throwing by the Australian umpire, Ross Emerson, three years before and in the run-up to this particular match there were rumours that something similar might be in the air, with Emerson standing again.
Saturday 23 January 1999
    It turned out to be an extraordinary day. In the eighteenth over – Muralitharan’s second – he was called for throwing by the umpire, Ross Emerson, from square leg.
    A huge row blew up on the field. Ranatunga was there, prodding the umpire in the chest and then leading his team to the pavilion rails, where he was given a mobile phone and apparently called Colombo for instructions.
    The match referee, Peter van der Merwe, got involved and after a quarter of an hour we got going again. Murali finished his over and changed ends, having another row with Emerson, as he got him to stand right up to the stumps.
    Laterwe found that the floodlights in one of the four pylons had failed. (I heard after the game that the Sri Lankans claimed that this was a plot and said they wouldn’t carry on, but the umpires and referee rated the light good enough.)
    The rest of the game became a very bad-tempered affair. The umpires made mistakes and there was acrimony on the field, with Alec Stewart overheard by the pitch microphones telling Ranatunga that he was a disgrace as an international captain. Stewart later described it as the least enjoyable day’s cricket he had ever had. It could not have helped that Sri Lanka won by one wicket with two balls to spare.
    I had another problem, in that I was putting the final touches to a book on cricket’s World Cups, with the seventh tournament due in England that year. I had included interviews with all the winning captains except the most recent – Arjuna Ranatunga. In the past I had always found him very approachable for interview, but on this tour he was proving more elusive and I had rather earmarked our time in Adelaide, while three one-day games were played, as my best chance to pin him down. Now I felt I had no chance at all.
    Australia played Sri Lanka the day after that acrimonious game. ICC hearings and legal consultations were in the air and even on the Monday when I rang Arjuna at his hotel I was sure he would be reluctant to speak. In fact he agreed to do it immediately and I got just the piece I needed, though when I broached the question of a comment on the events of Saturday evening (having made sure of my bit for the book) all I got was a smile and a shake of the head.
    The hearing with the match referee over Ranatunga’s conduct was three days later in Perth on the eve of England’s next meeting with Sri Lanka. My abiding memory is of avery sad Peter van der Merwe regretting bitterly that the game had come to this, with lawyers far too heavily involved. They had tied his hands over the extent of the penalties he could impose, so that a six-match ban had to be a suspended sentence.
    Many Englishmen who were in Adelaide at the beginning of December in 2006 will carry the mental scars of what they witnessed there. It was the second Test of what was an unhappy winter for England, who were defending the Ashes they had won back at long last in 2005. Australia had already won the first Test in Brisbane by a crushing 277 runs.
    After that, to make 266 for three on the first day in Adelaide was something of a relief. Paul Collingwood was 98 not out overnight and the next day he went on to a double hundred, putting on 310 for the fourth wicket with Kevin Pietersen, who made 158. This was heady