Twitter Calls ‘The CEO Of Sportsman Spirit’ Matthew Wade ‘Cheater’ For Stopping Mark Wood

The England cricket team may have won the first T20I of the 3-match series against Australia by 8 runs, thanks to the wonderful batting and bowling performances of English cricketers but the first T20I will also be remembered for one more thing and unfortunately it is something that should not have happened.

The Aussies won the toss in the match which was played at Optus Stadium, Perth, and the English cricket team batted pretty well to put up a big total of 208/6 on the score board. The skipper Jos Buttler and Alex Hales played superb knocks of 68 runs (32 balls, 8 fours & 4 sixes) and 84 runs (51 balls, 12 fours & 3 sixes), respectively and created a platform for their team to make a huge score by putting up a partnership of 132 runs for the first wicket. The English team managed to score 208 runs at the loss of 6 wickets in its stipulated 20 overs and this was certainly a challenging total even for the Australian side which has a strong batting lineup.

The Aussies may have lost Cameron Green early but David Warner ensured that he kept his team in the race to win the match as the left-handed batter played a blistering knock of 73 runs (44 balls, 8 fours & 2 sixes) and useful contributions were made by Mitchell March (36 runs, 26 balls, 3 fours & 2 sixes) and Marcus Stoinis (35 runs, 15 balls, 2 fours & 3 sixes) too. Matthew Wade also tried his best to take his team home as the winners but he ended up doing something because of which he got the tag of a “cheater” on social media. In the 17^th over which was bowled by Mark Wood, Matthew Wade wanted to play a big shot but the ball top edged the bat and went up in the air. Mark Wood ran to take the catch but Wade obstructed him using his hand because of which Mark Wood was not able to take the catch.

The England team didn’t appeal against Matthew Wade despite the fact that he would have been given out for obstructing the field as the skipper Jos Buttler said that he was busy in watching the ball because of which he was not able to see what happened between Matthew Wade and Mark Wood. Matthew Wade soon got out on the score of 21 and the Australians managed 200/9 in their stipulated 20 overs.

Soon the social media was flooded with responses from former cricketers and cricket fans and the majority of them showed no hesitation in calling Matthew Wade a ‘cheater’. There were also many who took a dig at the English cricket team over “the spirit of the game” episode.

Here are some selected reactions:

https://twitter.com/darkcarnage_18/status/1579074890665455618

https://twitter.com/sokanpuriya/status/1579083561071960065

https://twitter.com/Ruined__myself_/status/1579076291910807552

https://twitter.com/doesit_post/status/1579077095313281024

What is your take on this whole episode? Don’t you think that England should have appealed against Matthew Wade?