India spinner Deepti Sharma was bombarded with criticism and accused of maligning the ‘spirit of cricket’ after she ran out England’s Charlie Dean to help the Girls in Blue win the third and final ODI of the series at Lord’s on Saturday and pocket the series 3-0.
Charlie Dean was 47* and England needed 14 runs with more than 6 overs to go. On the 3rd ball of the 44th over, Deepti ran out Dean after the batter backed up too far and went out of her crease at the non-striker’s end before the ball was delivered.
In MCC Laws of Cricket, which ICC too has adopted, running out the non-striker is a legitimate dismissal. And from October 1 onwards, ICC stated: "Running out of the non-striker: The Playing Conditions follow the Laws in moving this method of effecting a Run out from the ‘Unfair Play’ section to the ‘Run out’ section.”
However, this dismissal caused several members of England's cricketing fraternity to criticize Deepti for her way of running Dean out to finish the match. Nasser Hussain, Sam Billings, James Anderson, and several noted journalists took a dig at the spinner for violating and hurting the ‘spirit of cricket’.
But Deepti Sharma was backed by India women’s captain Harmanpreet Kaur and now the Indian cricket fraternity has come in full support of the Indian all-rounder and backed her.
Here are some tweets:
