When umpires became click bait before everything finally clicked

He was briefly the most famous cricketer in the world. Of the seven million or so who saw his act on social media — literally his 15 seconds of fame — it is unlikely that more than a handful remember his name. But say ‘Clicky’ Ponting, and you will get either a smile or a bit of anger depending on how Clicky’s act is viewed.

For Clicky, also referred to as Snapil Dev (thus insulting two fine cricketers in one breath), cheated on a cricket field.

Simple trick

What Brian Devine (his real name) did was simple, maybe even funny depending on the angle of the light. Fielding at first slip, he clicked his fingers as the ball passed the bat, and the umpire was fooled into giving the batsman out. There is no specific law in cricket that states you cannot click your fingers or yawn or scratch yourself on the field. But the umpire can decide unfair play.

I am not sure if the sound of nail on skin or nail on nail or skin on skin sounds anything like that of leather on wood, but umpires at the lower reaches of the game may not be trained to differentiate.

Amazingly, there is footage of the match — a second division encounter in the North Yorkshire and South Durham League between Saltburn and Norton. This, thanks to FrogBox, a fixed camera that films games at this level for Play-Cricket, a website which streams matches of amateur teams in England.

For a while, Clicky was demoted to the level of football chief Gianni Infantino who was attempting to sell the World Cup to the highest bidder. But there is no evidence that Clicky was a mate of the U.S. President or indeed the British Prime Minister, so the leaders have not been implicated in any way.

And this being cricket, the statisticians got into the act quickly. In the 13 matches that Devine played, there were 39 catches by the wicketkeeper. In the seven matches he didn’t, the ’keeper took only five catches. Click bait has acquired a whole new meaning.

Devine, 38, has been suspended indefinitely by his club (which, let’s face it, cannot be innocent in the matter); there’s a hint here for the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) regarding Infantino.

Is too much made of the spirit of cricket? For nearly two hundred years after the laws were formalised, the supreme player was W.G. Grace, a great all-rounder and a notorious cheat. Yet cricket claimed a moral high ground early in its evolution, and continues to do so despite such events as ‘sandpapergate’ when Australian players scuffed the ball in a Test against South Africa and were suspended for it. As the journalist Rob Smyth pointed out, wrong ’uns exist outside the leg spin community too.

Interesting moral code

Cricket’s moral code is interesting. Claiming a catch when you know it is not out is cheating, but refusing to walk when you have edged the ball is allowed; it becomes the umpire’s problem or that of the Decision Review System. The philosopher David Papineau puts it down to the difference between morality and convention. Morality is universal, convention varies in society.

Club cricket has devised some devious methods of dismissal. I remember reading about one where, after the wicketkeeper had collected the ball he would look towards fine leg, the bowler would look in that direction too, pretending the ball had gone behind. And if the batsman was fooled into taking a single, the ’keeper would then whip off the bails.

Often, anything that gives your team an advantage —Grace replacing the bails saying the crowd had come to watch him bat, Geoff Boycott rubbing the wrong leg to throw the umpire off lbw — is often justified as service in a larger cause. All is fair etc. And if an umpire thinks a click or snap or cough sounds like an edge, then he is the one who needs to be censured. It is a good argument, but hardly a valid one. We judge an act by both intent and consequence.

Clicky is unlikely to be the leader of a new movement in cricket, though. He is merely another in a long tradition of wrong ’uns.