Today, the ICC honoured multiple cricketers for the outstanding contribution to the sport through out the last decade. Among these awardees was former India captain MS Dhoni, who received ICC Spirit of Cricket Award Of The Decade.
Dhoni has received the award for recalling Ian Bell after his bizarre run out during the Nottingham test in 2011.
This incident took place during India’s tour of England in 2011. On the third day of the Nottingham test, Eoin Morgan flicked one to the deep square leg boundary, where the ball was collected by Praveen Kumar.
The batsmen ran 3 and were jogging towards the pavilion for Tea, believing the ball to be dead. However, Kumar had saved the boundary, meaning the ball was still in play. Praveen eventually got the throw in and Abhinav Mukund took off the bails. Ian Bell was declared run out by the umpires.
According to Sportskeeda, during the Tea break, English captain Andrew Strauss and coach Andy Flower went to the Indian dressing room and asked MS Dhoni if he could withdraw his appeal as Bell did not intend to complete the fourth run.
The then Indian captain obliged and withdrew his appeal after consulting with his teammates and Bell resumed batting with Morgan for the last session of the day. Bell had acknowledged Dhoni and the Indian team after the day’s play.
Probably naive on my behalf, but taking into account the spirit of cricket and everything, this was probably the right decision. It wasn’t until we reached the boundary rope, when the umpires asked us to wait, that I knew something was on. It’s fantastic the way India have gone about this. The captains and coaches got together, and were asked if the decision would stand. Duncan Fletcher and MS Dhoni went back to discuss it with the team and came back to us, and I got the nod.
You can watch the whole incident here:
All that being said, Bell managed to score 159 in that innings and India lost the match by 319 runs.