To walk or not to walk? The debate, once conveniently divided into hemispheres, has reopened.

Traditionally Englishmen walked when they knew they were out. Australians waited for the umpire's decision.

As always the reality was more complicated and in the modern game few batsmen of any nationality leave the crease voluntarily.

All of which make the events in Madras last Thursday even more striking.

On the opening day of the second Test against India, acting captain Adam Gilchrist and Jason Gillespie departed immediately after obvious edges. To the open amazement of English umpire David Shepherd, who had just turned down an appeal, Michael Kasprowicz also headed for the pavilion.

"There's no team policy," explained Gilchrist. "It's an individual thing about how you want to play the game. But it's rubbing off. It's got to be a positive thing for cricket."

The Australians' traditional stance had the essential merit of honesty. They argued that good and bad decisions roughly balance out over the course of a career and that both should be accepted with equal grace.

MORAL SUPERIORITY?

Furthermore, Australians have detected more than a whiff of hypocrisy in English assertions of moral superiority.

W.G. Grace, the great Victorian who laid the foundations of the modern game, played the game as hard as any modern day Australian.

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"He never walked, never recalled a batsman even when he knew he should not have been given out and appealed with authoritative conviction from any part of the field," recalled his biographer Simon Rae.

Among a later generation Colin Cowdrey, generally viewed as a model English gentleman, did not impress the Australians. They believed Cowdrey walked when it was obvious he was out but waited for the umpire to rule on marginal decisions, calculating he would get the benefit of the doubt.

Gilchrist's initiative in India was not unprecedented.

Last year he created a minor sensation in a World Cup semi-final against Sri Lanka at Port Elizabeth where he walked after being given not out.

"As he did a hush came over the St George's Park, the sort of silence that generally presages a typhoon or a remark from Gary Cooper that it was too darned quiet," recorded cricket writer Peter Roebuck.

Former England captain Mike Atherton, himself a non-walker, speculated at the weekend that the Australians may have a "guilt complex" about their recent past.

Under Ian Chappell in the 1970s, Australia were a notoriously competitive outfit and free in their abuse of opponents. Steve Waugh's team, who won a record 16 consecutive Tests, were admired as a great side but forfeited total admiration because of their similarly robust approach.

By coincidence the Australian trio's actions came only days after the death of Keith Miller, who represented everything that was good about Australian sport for a generation of cricket lovers.

RADIANT GALLANTRY

Although a relentless competitor in a side possibly better than those run by Chappell and Waugh, Miller played with a radiant gallantry and generosity of spirit due in part to his experiences as a fighter pilot in World War Two.

Yet Miller was often at odds with his first international captain Don Bradman, who he believed sometimes transgressed the spirit of the game in his ruthless determination to win.

Dilemmas abound. Is it possible, or even desirable, to be the fairest as well as the best team in the world? In a situation which could directly decide the result of a series and indirectly the future income of your team mates, is walking necessarily the right thing to do.

As Gilchrist stressed in Port Elizabeth, the decision has to rest with an individual.

"I'm not totally sure why today I've decided to do otherwise but it sits comfortably with me," he said.

"I'm not on a crusade to try and get it back to the old days of gentleman's behaviour but a lot of the time I was thinking 'I wonder if I'll ever be in a scenario where I'm the batsman and I have to make that decision?'

"Today that situation came up and something inside me said 'walk'. So I went."