Wednesday 4 June 2014 18:27, UK
England captain Alastair Cook believes the ill feeling created by the controversial run-out of Jos Buttler at Edgbaston could continue into the upcoming Test series with Sri Lanka.
In Tuesday’s deciding one-day international between the sides, Buttler was dismissed by Sachithra Senanayake as he backed up at the non-striker’s end, a move that is within the laws of the game but is perceived by many to be against the spirit.
The dismissal, which is only the eighth of its type in international cricket history, was also enforced by tourist’s captain Angelo Mathews.
Mathews and team-mate Mahela Jayawardene later expressed no regrets over the dismissal, saying that Buttler was attempting to claim an unfair advantage.
And Cook feels the aggravation provoked by the incident will now probably run over into the longer format series between the sides, which gets under way on Thursday 12 June.
It's a silly dismissal. He's been warned and he walks out again. What is the first offence? The first offence is leaving your crease.
When asked, after Tuesday’s fifth ODI, which Sri Lanka won to take the series 3-2, if this would be the case, Cook replied: "Probably, yes. It will spice it up a bit - nothing wrong with that."
He added: "It's just important you let your cricket do the talking as well, and you back up words.
"If he [Mathews] says he's going to do it again, it's up to him.
"As captain of your country, there are certain ways you want your team to operate."
Senanayake, who was reported after Sri Lanka's ODI win at Lord's for a suspect action, has not been selected for the two Tests, while it remains to be seen if the as-yet-uncapped Buttler will feature for England.
Either way, Jayawardene is hoping there will be no more repercussions.
"We'll play with good spirit, I think," he said. "We've done that in the past and we look forward to a very good Test series.
"It will be tough, but we'll pull through."
As for Buttler's dismissal in Birmingham, however, Jayawardene was unrepentant.
"We gave him a fair chance twice - before the first warning as well, we told the umpires that they're taking too much of a lead.
"We had to do that, because they kept doing it.
"At Lord's, they took 22 twos in the last 12 overs. Ravi (Bopara) and he ran riot, and most of the time they were taking starts - which was not legal by the written law.
"We warned the umpires, warned them. They didn't listen to us, so we had to take the right steps.
"The umpires said they would handle it but obviously didn't.
"We have always tried to play in the right spirit. But if the other teams are not playing with the right spirit, by the law, we had to do this unfortunately."
