The Indian
cricket team may have been losers on the pitch this weekend, but they won widespread admiration for the way they allowed England batsman Ian Bell to
keep his wicket.
Bell was
run out by an appealing Indian team after wrongly assuming that a shot he had hit had
gone for four runs, with a video replay showing that the ball was in fact still
in play - and meaning that the in-form star was out with the last delivery
before tea on Sunday. Bell had assumed tea had been called.
Yet India went back on their appeal and allowed his wicket to remain intact - with Tuesday's papers revealing that Indian talisman Sachin Tendulkar
was the man who persuaded his team-mates to allow Bell another chance for what
was a naive mistake.
Several high-profile names in world cricket - including former England skipper Mike Atherton
- have admitted that they would never have extended such a courtesy to an
opponent, and have praised the tourists for their magnanimous gesture.
India went
on to lose the match by a crushing 319 runs, and given that Bell made just 22
more runs it is unlikely to have made any difference to the result - but there
is no doubt that the gesture will make a huge difference to the spirit in which
the rest of the series is played.
The
memorable moment has inspired us to look back at five of the greatest moments
of sportsmanship ever seen.
Paolo Di Canio stops for injured opponent at Goodison
Park, December 2000
West Ham
had pulled level in injury time of their Premier League clash with Everton at
Goodison Park, and had the chance to take all three points when the ball was
crossed to controversial Italian striker Di Canio with just moments left.
But Di
Canio was having none of it. With the goal at his mercy, he caught the ball and called for the referee to allow assistance to be given to Everton's
injured goalkeeper Paul Gerrard, who was slumped on the turf outside his box.
The match
finished in a draw, and rehabilitated Di Canio's reputation after an infamous
push on referee Paul Alcock three years previously that earned him a ban of
several months.
"It
was the most fantastic bit of sportsmanship I have ever seen, but I didn't know
whether to laugh or cry," said Hammers boss Harry Redknapp after the
match.
John Francome refuses to ride to share jockey's
title with Peter Scudamore, 1982
The 1982 national
hunt jockey's title was set for a thrilling climax with Francome and Scudamore
trading winner for winner throughout the season.
Scudamore
had pulled ahead towards the end of the campaign, but his chances seemed over
when he was seriously injured in a fall in April and was ruled out for the rest
of the season.
That should
have left the way clear for Francome to take the title for the fourth time - but
when he tied Scudamore's tally of 120 winners a few weeks later, he retired for
the remainder of the season in order that the pair should share the title.
Francome's
generosity of spirit was repaid in karma: he won the title for the next three
years, while Scudamore eventually won a further seven titles (all in a row from
1986-1992) to end his career as one of the sport's greatest ever riders.
Nigel Mansell gives Ayrton Senna a lift after
the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, July 1991
Runaway drivers'
championship leader Ayrton Senna looked capable of a fifth win in eight races as
he hounded Mansell towards the end of the British Grand Prix in 1991.
But the
Brazilian was forced to back off with a few laps left as his car began to run
dangerously low on fuel - and he was robbed of a podium spot when it
finally ran dry on the last lap of the race.
That left
Mansell free to record a second consecutive win that kept his championship
hopes alive - but he demonstrated the
huge respect he had for his opponent by stopping to pick up the stranded Senna after
crossing the line.
The
Brazilian sat on Mansell's Williams all the way back to the pits, with the
pair waving to the crowd in one of the sport's most iconic
moments.
Jack Nicklaus concedes putt to Tony Jacklin to share
the Ryder Cup at Royal Birkdale, September 1969
When the US
team turned up to play Great Britain and Ireland for the Ryder Cup, they were
red-hot favourites: the Americans had lost the trophy just once in the previous
13 encounters, and in players such as Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino and Billy
Casper they boasted plenty of talent.
GB&I
had a trump card, however: reigning Open champion Tony Jacklin, who had won
four and a half points from a possible five going into the final afternoon
singles matches.
Jacklin
drew US star Jack Nicklaus, and with other results erasing the home side's
two-point lead the match came down to the final green.
The Brit
was in pole position to secure victory after eagling the 17th to draw level,
then watching Nicklaus charge his first putt five feet past the hole on the
18th.
Nicklaus
holed his lengthy return putt, leaving Jacklin a two-and-a-half foot putt to tie
the Ryder Cup - yet even before Jacklin could line it up, Nicklaus picked up
his opponent's ball marker to concede the putt.
"I didn't
think you would have missed that putt, but in these circumstances I would never
give you the opportunity," Nicklaus said to Jacklin as the pair walked off
the green arm-in-arm.
The famous
gesture instantly went down in history as one of the greatest acts of good
sportsmanship ever seen - but it didn't go down well with US Ryder Cup skipper
Sam Snead or the rest of his team.
"All
the boys thought it was ridiculous to give him that putt," Snead said at
the time. "We went over there to win, not to be good ol' boys."
Freddie Flintoff commiserates with Brett Lee
after England win Ashes Test at Edgbaston, August 2005
England
looked odds-on to lose the Ashes yet again after they were trounced at the
opening Test at Lord's in 2005.
But all
that changed a week later at Edgbaston as a sterling effort by the hosts put
them on the brink of a victory as they tried to chase down a seemingly
impossible fourth-innings target of 282 - something that looked even less
likely as Australia struggled to 175-8.
Yet an
Aussie rearguard action, kicked off by Shane Warne, helped the tourists get in
position to turn the match on its head as they chipped away, and even when
Warne trod on his own wicket the Aussies kept coming with Brett Lee making the
runs and Michael Kasprowicz trying to hold up the other end.
Finally,
however, Kasprowicz gloved a Steve Harmison delivery to wicket keeper Geraint
Jones to give England victory by just two runs.
Lee,
marooned on 43 not out, was distraught and fell to his haunches in disbelief
after coming out on the wrong side of what was the closest runs defeat in Ashes
history. But even in his moment of triumph, England's man of the match Flintoff found time to stop and console Lee, putting his arm around him and
offering words of commiseration in a moment that defined the competitive yet
mutually warm and respectful spirit in which the entire series was played.