KEY POINTS:
What we saw with Muttiah Muralitharan's run out yesterday was a classic example of how cricket's laws need to change and how we need to give umpires more discretion.
Everyone in that ground and watching on TV was in no doubt - Murali was not trying to take another run.
He had grounded his bat and had headed up the pitch to congratulate a team-mate who had scored a great hundred.
Murali had helped him and wanted to join the congratulations. Should he be run out for that? I don't think so.
I am not getting at the New Zealanders. They had a right, under the laws of the game, to do what they did. They were only playing to the letter of the law - although I would also say they grabbed the chance because they were a bit frustrated they had not yet knocked off the tail.
That's where I think the change is needed. In a circumstance such as that, it is clear the law is wrong - but our umpires can do nothing except enforce it.
If the game is not going to allow umpires the use of technology to make certain, then I think cricket has to tolerate a certain level of mistakes. It's only human to err, after all.
Other key aspects of the human condition are reason and common sense - and the latter is lacking in the way cricket's laws have to be applied.
Why not give the umpires discretion in that situation?
Football and rugby referees, for example, have discretion in how they can react to similar situations in their code. How come we can't do it in cricket?
If the umpires can't apply reason, logic, or common sense, well, I think it's wrong.
What happened to Murali was unfair but legal. If umpires had discretion in an instance like that, they could rule that Murali wasn't trying to take a run and should not be given out.
It would need a law change and a change in the way umpires operate for that to happen. Controversies like this tend to stimulate law changes.
Or, rather, they do if they happen in Australia and, to an increasing extent, on the Subcontinent.
In New Zealand, however, we are seen as kind of Australia's ugly little cousin and I am not sure the powers-that-be take quite the same amount of notice.
There are laws which stop players from mucking around with the game - laws like interfering with the field and hitting the ball twice.
This would seem an extension of rules like that but there is nowhere for umpires to hide if a team like New Zealand whip off the bails and holler: "Howzat?"
We should give our umpires more powers to use logic and simple, human common sense.
