Ponting, Haddin Defy Vettori’s “Cheat” Claims

The controversy over Broom’s dismissal was never going to go down easy. The wicket keeper had no business having his gloves before the stumps. It has now put two teams in an acrimonious situation and does not help after the tight match.
Daniel Vettori was bound to bring it up at some point. After all, had Broom not been dismissed, the forty-two run partnership with Ross Taylor could have perhaps have been extended further to give New Zealand more breathing space in their tight victory over the hosts. As it turned out, Broom was declared out when the ball hit the stumps. But replays showed that Australia’s wicket keeper Brad Haddin had his gloves right before the stumps, leading to doubts whether the ball first hit his gloves and then, the gloves hit the stumps and even less clearly, if the ball hit the bails first and then went into the gloves as Brad claims.
To call him a cheat would perhaps be stretching it but perhaps even the wicket keeper could have been unsure of what actually transpired. That his gloves were in the wrong place would have been enough even for him to raise a query to the umpires and for the umpires to invoke the no ball on the grounds of the law that states that the wicket keeper’s gloves cannot be before the stumps before the ball passes the stumps, or the batsman attempts a run or the ball even touches the batsman. That he did not, irked Vettori.
Vettori’s comments suggested as much, “I think you saw from Haddin’s reaction that he knew something was wrong so he probably should have made more noise about it. It is (disappointing) because I thought that was the partnership that was going to win the game, so it put us under a bit more pressure. We’ve just got to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
The Australians though have taken it to heart. Ponting was vocal about how he intended to approach Vettori’s insinuations, “He (Brad Haddin) obviously didn’t know, because if he knew then he wouldn’t have claimed it. Whatever we’re saying about Brad Haddin here, you can’t say that knowingly happened, that is for sure. We’ll wait and see. If the replay does show anything that Brad is in the clear, I’ll certainly be letting Daniel know about it. It’s probably worth Haddin having a chat to him as well. He’s basically had a bit of a crack at Haddin’s make-up.”
Haddin was indignant about Vettori’s claims calling them “low” and “poor” and stated in his defense, “fter looking at the replay, my hands were in front of the stumps,” he said. “But the ball, I’m 100% positive, hit the bails first and then came up into my gloves.”
It has added an edge to the battle now. But whether this was desirable is something that should be debated.

This reminds me of the infamous dismissal by Victoria’s Ray Jordan during the Australian tour of India in 1969-70. Jordon was the wk and the ball bounced from his leg onto the stumps and he claimed a bowled and the batsman walked

http://monkeyatthecricket.blogspot.com/2009/02/haddin-and-jordon.html