If this Champions Trophy is remembered for anything other than Jesse Ryder’s excellent moustache, it’ll be for captains having to make decisions about the spirit of the game. Andrew Strauss recalling Angelo Mathews after he was run out following a mid-pitch collision and then Daniel Vettori allowing Paul Collingwood to stay after he was stumped following the end of an over.

Then there was Strauss’s decision to not allow Graeme Smith a runner after getting cramp. Again, that was clearly the right call. Or was it?

According to a poll on Cricinfo.com, only 23% believe that Strauss did the right thing, while 46% thought Strauss was mean and nasty. The other 30% believed the umpires should have made the decision.

Was it really so unsportsmanlike? Strauss said that “cramping to a certain extent is a preparation thing and to a certain extent a conditioning thing”. So what he was really saying is that Smith, not the smallest of men, was too fat to bat. This seems completely fair to me. An international cricketer should be able to last 100 overs in a day without cramping up. Smith came back by saying that Strauss will find himself in the same situation at some point because “the world is round”. Sounds like Earth could be in danger of cramping, too.

A pulled hamstring, a broken toe … these are deserving of a runner. Not someone who doesn’t do enough fitness work. Running the cross-country would have been a doddle at school if I could have asked the teacher for a runner to complete the final quarter of it for me.

Strauss had as much right to refuse Smith a runner for cramping as he would if someone asked for one because they “felt a bit tired”. Who really is the more unsporting in this scenario? The professional sportsman trying to gain an advantage in a match because he isn’t fit enough or the man who tells him he can’t?

Daniel Brigham is assistant editor of The Wisden Cricketer