Thank God for cricket's spirit of the game

Watching the drama unfold on Sunday afternoon at Trent Bridge, it is really hard to see why other sports cannot adhere to an unwritten code that everyone knows about, but rarely gets talked about. Roy Carroll shoveling the ball back across his goal-line is probably not in the spirit of the game, nor was Thierry Henry's blatant hand ball which helped France defeat Ireland for a spot at the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

In fact Sunday was a great showcase for unwritten rules in sports on both sides of the Atlantic, as baseball's Justin Verlander, pitcher for the MLB team the Detroit Tigers was close to pitching a no-hitter last night. For those not in the know, a no-hitter, is obviously a game in which a pitcher limits the opposing team to zero hits, a rare but not unknown feat - of which Nolan Ryan leads the way with seven of them.

In the eighth inning (there are nine), Eric Aybar bunted for a hit, which involves deadening the ball on the infield in between the pitcher and catcher and using your speed to beat out a throw. Now this is breaks an unwritten rule in baseball that you do not try and break up a no-hitter, a pretty big deal for any pitcher, by trying to get a bunt-hit. However, the play resulted in a throwing error not a hit, and Verlander's no-hitter got a reprieve for another five minutes, until it was broken up later in the inning by a Maicer Izturis single.

And in case you were feeling sorry for the Tigers, it was this incident of showboating in the inning before by Tigers' Carlos Guillen that put the whole saga in motion, and which arguably broke another unwritten rule in baseball, that is not to show up an opposing pitcher.

Moving back to England I saw the Ian Bell incident slightly different from most others. While the umpire did not call over, or time, or tea, and while he did not make any verbal indication that the ball was dead, he did hand the bowler his hat. This would be a pretty clear indication to me that the ball was dead as a batsmen. When would an umpire hand the bowler his cap during the middle of a briskly-run single into the covers?

It is nice to see that a to-do was spared on the field, and I felt sorry for the Indians being booed onto the field after tea, as tempers frayed off the pitch. Geoffrey Boycott and Jonathan Agnew, best of friends usually, had a bit of a ding-dong on-air, after which Mrs Boycott forced Mr Boycott to apologise, while Ravi Shastri hit back at Nasser Hussain after the former England captain labelled India's decision not to allow reviews on LBWs a 'disgrace'.

You can see Shastri's comments at the end of the video, and it just comes off as a confused, ill-thought out rant.

But going back to the sport in general, it seems odd that cricket, through all levels maintains , while football pervades a cold-blooded ruthlessness that demands its players do everything to win. Playing in juniors more than a decade to go and chasing a massive total I was at the non-strikers end and backing up a bit too aggressively. The bowler waited until I was way out of my crease and gestured as if to break the bails off, but did not do so as I belly flopped back over the mark. He could have easily run me out, but chose instead to warn me. Suitably chastised, I kept my ground more sensibly.

Why can't this sort of sportsmanship extend to football, and is this the fault of money-grubbing foreigners or do they act as a convenient scapegoat for a sporting culture riddled with unsporting cheats?