Neither enigmatic tennis player Kyrgios nor devilish cricketer Ashwin broke any rules. Yet their actions have sparked an age-old debate about the line frequently crossed in sport - the one which sets apart the unethical from the illegal.

Kyrgios, a man in the headlines more often for his antics than his ability, caused uproar among the traditionalists in the tennis world when he brought back the underarm serve in two of his matches last month.

First, the Australian used the tactic in a match against Rafael Nadal, which the Spaniard, with his strict and stern demeanour, duly took umbrage at. Kyrgios then repeated the trick in his Miami Open contest with Serbia's Dušan Lajović, who was rather more understanding.

Ashwin also attracted his fair share of criticism after he took the wicket of Englishman Jos Buttler using the "Mankad" dismissal - where a bowler removes the bails of the non-striker, without warning, when he steps out of his crease in preparation for running towards the opposite end - in an Indian Premier League match.

Named after its first perpetrator, Vinoo Mankad, who caused major controversy when he ran out Bill Brown in the second Test of India’s tour to Australia in the 1947-1948 season, the move is frowned upon as some believe it is contrary to the "spirit of the game" - a claim also levelled at Kyrgios.

The purists claim this kind of action, be it a Mankad or an underarm serve, contravenes the very essence of sportsmanship. The more laissez-faire among fans of sport disagree, insisting there is nothing wrong with a bit of gamesmanship every now and then and that the athletes or players involved are merely doing everything in their power to win.

It is worth reiterating here that neither Kyrgios nor Ashwin broke the laws of tennis and cricket respectively. The only thing they are guilty of is toeing the line.

Those who have taken to social media, which has intensified these kinds of debate with its immediacy and scope, to criticise Kyrgios and Ashwin - as well as others involved in similar acts - are perhaps forgetting the numerous examples of blatant cheating, ranging from the downright daft to the dangerous, which have plagued sport since the very beginning.

We must go back over 100 years for my favourite example. In the marathon at the 1904 St Louis Olympic Games - a race which took place in sweltering conditions, according to records from the time - American Fred Lorz had stormed to victory but was disqualified before he was presented with his medal.

The reason? He was found to have covered 11 of the 26.2-mile course in a car.

More recently, the omnipresent doping issue has reared its ugly head on too many occasions to recount. Gone are the days when an athlete being stripped of a major medal after testing positive was considered major news; the sheer volume of cases over the last two decades or so has put paid to that.

What the likes of Lorz and Ashwin have in common is the acts they committed, which range from cheating to going against the "spirit of the game", are demonstrations of the lengths some competitors will go to in pursuit of sporting glory.

It is a stance some of us can certainly empathise with, even if we might not want to admit it. In England last summer, football fever swept the nation as the national team reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in Russia, albeit largely thanks to a favourable run of opponents.

Imagine, however, if England had got to the final. In the last minute, with the score at 0-0, Harry Kane dives in the box and wins a penalty, which he subsequently scores. Would the general public in the country opt not to celebrate in response? I highly doubt it.

The overriding emotion would be one of celebration rather than castigation, while the opposite would be true for the team on the receiving end.

Of course, there is a middle ground and there would be others for whom the initial delight would gradually fade into disappointment, while a small minority would feel the victory had been totally tarnished by how it was achieved.

When it comes to fans and supporters, we also seemingly have the right to choose when we are outraged, although this further highlights the inherent hypocrisy ingrained in all of us. We cannot have it both ways.

This is not to suggest cheating of any form can be justified - far from it - but the rewards in sport are so lucrative that you begin to understand the rationale of athletes who do bend the rules for the gain of either themselves, their team or even their country.

Others have a slightly different moral compass, believing sports true value is in its spirit and cooperation.

As there have been many examples of cheating, there have also been, thankfully, a myriad of displays of fair play and sportsmanship.

The other day, a video of an incident in an under-14 match in Turkey went viral. The footage showed a 13-year-old Galatasaray player, Beknaz Almazbekov, deliberately missing a penalty he thought should not have been given.

The Olympic Games is often a platform for demonstrations of fair play and sportsmanship. At Rio 2016, New Zealand’s Nikki Hamblin tripped and fell on the back straight 10 minutes into her 5,000 metres heat, bringing down Abbey D’Agostino.

The American was up first and helped Hamblin to her feet before both continued. But soon D’Agostino limped to a halt before subsiding to the track and holding her right knee with a grimace of pain.

Hamblin, who had been running next to her, stopped to offer words of comfort before resuming, clearly in tears, and the pair ran most of the remainder of the race together.

The incident will be forever etched into Olympic folklore and was as memorable an image from the Games as any medal-winning performance.

This is true for similar displays of sportsmanship in other sports. Andrew Flintoff kneeling to console fellow gnarly fast-bowler Brett Lee after England had beaten Australia by just two runs in the second Ashes Test at Edgbaston, a match considered among the best in history by cricket enthusiasts, is remembered as vividly as any game-defining moment in the contest.

For many athletes and fans alike, however, success trumps sportsmanship. It does not matter how you win, as long as you win.