It's been said before, but no matter. Cricket teaches you about life. I don't mean this in the way that people sometimes say that Latin teaches you logical thinking. You can learn to think logically without studying Latin, and you can learn about life from... life. Nevertheless, aside from its intrinsic merits as a sport, cricket also offers us lessons in life.
Take Ricky Ponting's dismissal at Lord's today. Given out caught by the umpires, which the technology shows to have been a wrong decision, Ponting was - also according to the technology - out lbw. Bad decision, but cosmic justice.
This teaches us (1) that outcomes can sometimes be just even when human agencies fail to deliver what they should. And it reminds us (2) that those human agencies do often fail, so that justice isn't always done since the cosmic variety is a matter of luck. And it highlights the fact (3) that there is a difference between procedural and substantive justice. The correct procedures led to Ponting's being given out - but for the wrong reason. The decision that he was out caught was procedurally just but substantively unjust; yet that he was out was substantively just.
