During the 2013 Ashes at Trent Bridge, Stuart Broad produced one of cricket's most brazen moments of gamesmanship. He edged a delivery so thickly that the sound was picked up by microphones in the car park. The ball flew to slip, was caught, and the Australians celebrated wildly, confident in the knowledge that they had just taken a wicket that was more obvious than daylight.
There was just one problem — Broad didn't walk. He stood at the crease with the poker face of a professional gambler who had just been dealt a terrible hand and decided to bluff the entire table. He showed absolutely no indication that he'd hit the ball, maintaining an expression of innocent bewilderment that would have convinced a jury if it hadn't been for the fifteen camera angles all showing the edge. The umpire, Aleem Dar, gave him not out. Australia didn't have any DRS reviews left. Broad stayed.
The Australian players looked like they were going to spontaneously combust. Their expressions cycled through disbelief, outrage, fury, and finally a kind of grudging, horrified admiration at the sheer audacity of what they were witnessing. Captain Michael Clarke's reaction was the kind of emotional journey normally reserved for people receiving very bad news at hospitals.
What made it truly entertaining was how obvious the edge was. It wasn't a faint nick — it was an edge you could hear from the stands, from the hospitality boxes, possibly from the M1 motorway. Broad's expression of studied innocence, his casual lean on his bat while Australia protested, and his cheerful continuation of batting as if nothing had happened was either admirable gamesmanship or outrageous cheek, depending on your nationality. He went on to make 65 — runs that may well have decided the match.
Australian newspapers printed his photo with headlines that are not reproducible in a family publication. The incident became shorthand for the "walking" debate in cricket — should a batsman voluntarily give himself out when he knows he's edged it, or is it the umpire's job?