Sean Dickson forgets the rules of the game

Not sure if anyone else saw this but it happens so rarely that it warrants sharing. Kent's Sean Dickson became the 60th man to be dismissed handling the ball in first-class cricket. To add insult to injury, he was out for a duck. I still don't know what he was thinking. He had plenty of time to kick the ball away or hit it with his bat. It's as though he simply forgot the rules of the game. The best part is when he sheepishly re-marks his guard, hoping no one actually noticed.

Prior to this, the most recent incident of handling the ball in first-class cricket also came against Leicestershire when Cheteshwar Pujara was dismissed playing for Derbyshire two years ago.

Hopefully the gif I created plays properly. I tried to embed the Vine video, but it appears we can only embed Youtube videos.

While the cricketers obviously know the rules of the game, I think a lot of the time its just an instant reaction that you automatically do and then it's too late to stop yourself.

It's not as if they think they'll try and cheat and get away with it, as not only are the umpires there, most games are covered from a multitude of cameras now and the players know that.

As a kid, you are taught to never touch the ball with your hand while the ball is still live. Use your bat, kick it away, do anything needed to stop the ball from hitting your stumps, just not your hand.

Your natural instincts is always, always to kick it away or use your bat. Never to use your hands. What made this even worse is that Dickson had plenty of time to react. The ball was rolling so slowly towards his stumps. I am not sure it would have even dislodged the bails had he have let it hit the stumps. It was a simple brain freeze. It happens to the very best though.







The difference in these three instances, however, is that the ball was going to canon into the stumps and they had no time to try and kick or bat the ball away.

Rahul Dravid showing how its done:

Obviously your taught that handling a live ball is a definite no no, but all I was meaning was that in some circumstances panic might set in, in a scenario where you've no idea where the balls popped up, you spin round to see it aiming at the wicket and think "sh*t!" You flinch and go to knock it away and in that split second you think "sh*t!" again as you know you've messed up, haha!

Agreed, but in this instance Dickson had no need to panic as a) the ball stayed in front of his eyeline the entire time (the exact opposite of the three examples posted above where the ball cannoned behind the batsman) and b) it happened so slowly that he had plenty of time to process his decision. It was a simple brain freeze. Something Dickson himself admitted after the match.

Of all the out handled the ball dismissals I have seen, this was as bad as Michael Vaughan's against India. Daryll Cullinan against the West Indies was another poor one.



Check out the wry smile on his face as he immediately knows what he has just done.

Seeing as in a couple of our posts we've mentioned football as a comparison, I'll do it again here. I think with cricketers its is just that split second instinct, or brain freeze whereas in football it's sometimes a deliberate action of cheating.

Maradona handball against England in the '86 world cup, the famous 'hand of God moment' was because he deliberately cheated. When a cricketer does it there's no malice intended, and that's why it's kind of laughed about more than anything.