Mike Atherton knew he was prodding a hornet’s nest, no doubt, when he suggested that the preamble to the Laws of Cricket is superfluous. John Woodcock feels that it may need rewriting and Simon Barnes that cricketers are in need of clarification about the game’s moral code.

I disagree to a degree with them all. I think the preamble has its place and that cricketers from the village green to the Test arena have a shrewd idea, in 99 cases out of 100, what is and is not within the Spirit of the Game.

That spirit, distilled, is simply “fair play”. It does not mean that bowlers cannot get hot under the collar and mutter the odd oath because they are competitive animals and they will. It does mean that they should not run out a batsman when he is not attempting a run. Cricket thrives on decency and wilts when baser instincts rule.

Moreover, when it comes to specifics, there is provision for dealing with practically every transgression of the Spirit of the Game in the 42 Laws that follow the preamble, not least the last and longest of them, dealing with fair play. It is, for example, often stated that sledging is a grey area. In the sense that it is a matter of an umpire’s opinion whether it has gone too far, that is true. But Law 42.5 is as plain as any fast bowler’s language: “It is unfair for any member of the fielding side, by word or action, wilfully to attempt to distract the striker while he is preparing to receive or receiving a delivery.”

Once an umpire feels that a few pointed comments have become an attempt to undermine a batsman’s concentration, he is provided with a clear course of action. The preamble, no less clear and concise, also leaves little room for doubt about what is and is not acceptable. It is true that it is pretentious in referring to the game’s “unique” appeal because its beauty is in the eye of the beholder and not everyone reveres it. Nor is cricket different to any other sport in needing honourable conduct as well as a set of regulations.

But the preamble in the 2000 code gave the Laws a framework, stressing the responsibility of captains and appealing to the better nature of all players in an era when increasing rewards for professionals were leading inevitably to greater ruthlessness.

“The Spirit of Cricket is a grey area and asks captains to make moral judgments that are sometimes contrary to the laws,” our distinguished chief cricket correspondent wrote.

But that is what leadership requires and good captains know almost by instinct when something is right or wrong. Paul Collingwood got it wrong last year when he failed to withdraw the appeal after Grant Elliott, the New Zealand all-rounder, had been knocked to the ground and run out; Daniel Vettori got it right in the Champions Trophy when he reprieved the same, grateful and now wiser, Collingwood.

Not all incidents, of course, are as clear-cut as these. The collision between Angelo Mathews, of Sri Lanka, and Graham Onions, of England, in the Champions Trophy seemed to be neither man’s fault. Andrew Strauss was generous in reprieving him, but it is much better to err on the side of generosity. In the same competition he was right not to allow Graeme Smith a runner because he had cramp, since cramp is not “illness or injury” as specified in Law 2.

Strauss’s natural sense of fair play applied also when he allowed Australia to change their wicketkeeper after the toss in the Edgbaston Test this summer. Ricky Ponting would no doubt have done the same. The Spirit of the Game is actually far more often upheld at the highest level than it is breached.

“Athers” certainly preaches what he practised: the hard but fair approach. During the Adelaide Test match in the 1994-95 series, captaining England in yet another unequal series in Australia, he stole a second run when a throw from the covers rebounded off his bat as he completed a sharp single. It aroused instant ire on the part of his opponents, which, he privately admitted afterwards, was exactly why he called his partner to run again. He knew that what he was doing was not quite “cricket”, yet within the law, and the incident passed. Had there been, say, ten runs to win and a wicket to fall, it might have been different, but that would have been the law’s fault.

An amendment stating that the ball should be dead once a run has been completed if it has hit batsman, bat or stumps is overdue. It is equally unfair that a batsman can be run out if his feet and bat are off the ground even when he is on the right side of the crease. But in these cases it is the law in question that needs tweaking, not the preamble, or the spirit behind it.