The Spirit Of The Game

I have to confess that I am a cricket addict, it doesn't matter who is on I'll be watching. So you can imagine my excitement at this time of the summer as the Ashes rolls around. I suspect that even if you aren't that into cricket it has invaded your consciousness over the past few days due to the incident involving England wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow.

For those of you who haven't heard, there was controversy when Jonny Bairstow, assuming the ball to not be in play anymore wondered from his crease and was promptly stumped by the Australian wicketkeeper Alex Carey. The controversy doesn't surround if Bairstow was in or out everyone agrees that he was out, according to the laws of the game, the controversy surrounds if what Carey and the Australian team did was within the "spirit of the game".

Cricket has always considered itself a gentleman's game, where if you nick the ball to the wicketkeeper you walk, if the ball goes for a boundary you signal it and somehow what the Australians did it was felt went against this "spirit of the game."

What has transpired in the past few days has been nothing short of astounding. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Rishi Sunak weighed in declaring that what Australia had done was against the spirit of the game, a few of the quotes from the England players have stood out to me though.

Stuart Broad, the England bowler in a column for the Daily Mail said this:

I was angered by Australia’s decision, particularly having heard their lines about creating a new legacy as a team, and how they have changed since the tour of South Africa in 2018.

Fair enough you might be tempted to think, here is an England player seeking to uphold the spirit of the game, that is until you remember that Stuart wasn't so keen to uphold the spirit of the game when he refused to walk after nicking the ball to slip twice. Or there was the reaction of England head coach Brendon McCullum who said that England would have chosen not to uphold their appeal and therefore Bairstow would have been declared not out. That again sounds good and very sporting but yet again when we consider McCullum's history when he controversially ran out a Sri Lankan player celebrating a team mates hundred it begins to ring a bit hollow. Perhaps the England team itself can be held up to be bastions of the so called spirit of the game...or perhaps not, consider the world cup final when Stokes deflected the ball over the boundary for four crucial runs from a throw. Surely the spirit of the game would have said well next ball we won't play a shot but of course with the game on the line that couldn't be done.

Perhaps we should consider the run out of Colin DeGrandhomme in similar circumstances last year again the appeal was not withdrawn again similarly in a one day international v New Zealand when Ryan Sidebottom an England bowler ran into the New Zealand batsman who was subsequently run out the appeal was not withdrawn.

Now what is the point in all this? Well quite simply this is how we often try and deal with God isn't it? Like the England cricket team we might say we have done some bad things but we aren't as bad as the person down the road, we aren't as bad as the worst of the worst and therefore actually because we aren't as bad as them then God will tolerate our sin.

The problem comes though when we realise that God's standard isn't the Australian cricket team, it isn't our friend down the road, but God's standard is perfection and if we are honest we all know that we have fallen far short of that standard of perfection. We all know that we have done things that aren't right, we all know that we have said things that are hurtful and we all know in our heart of hearts that we fail to meet that standard.

Yet thats the good news of the gospel, that there is one who is perfect, there is one who has always done what is right, there is one who was good and kind and true. Jesus came and laid down his life so that through faith in Him, His perfection could be our perfection, his obedience could be our obedience. Dont settle for comparing yourself to someone else but rather come to know Jesus as your saviour and know His perfect obedience for yourself today.