Cricket should mind its manners

Published : Jan 12, 2002 00:00 IST

ROHIT BRIJNATH

MODERN cricketers, we are told, are physically adept these days, fleet of foot, sound of body. It might well explain why they are so swift to ascend to the high moral ground whenever controversy breaks.

When it comes to spirit of the game everyone is suddenly virtuous: sinners are miraculously fashioning halos for themselves. It is enough to make you cringe.

Brett Lee in Australia attempts surgery via cricket ball on Nantie Hayward, whose batting technique would have him dropped from the Baltiboi Second XI, and his coach and captain think it a manly pursuit. Then Waugh himself is fined for not leaving the pitch when out, and grumbles mildly about the gag order that prevents him from commenting on match referee issues. As Waugh said, ``The whole system probably needs to be looked at. At this stage, there are no comebacks''. (His complaint was valid, but people were less generous when the Indians made a similar point; of course Waugh was calm, we frothed.)

The English team whines piteously about spirit and assails Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar for the Michael Vaughan dismissal, yet finds a cricketing logic for bowling an outside leg stump line (if that's a tactic, so is underarm bowling). So what if in the process they are doing for cricket what Roman taxi drivers have been doing to tourists for years.

South African bowlers punctuate every comment to a batsman with language your mother's Lifebuoy couldn't wash out, but it is passed off as an acceptable form of Western greeting.

Let us not be fooled: we are no upholders of the game's spirit either. India's captain has befriended more match referees than is appropriate, and not every incident can be explained as bias on their part and innocent passion on his. Players appeal as if they were at the vegetable market, and the wicketkeeper is flirting with laryngitis. I once asked a player why he appealed (successfully) for a catch he knew was off the pads, and he replied, "Everyone does it". Still, there is all sorts of finger-pointing going on, all sorts of justifications being made. It is all getting a trifle silly. Of course, cricketers will lose their cool now and then, but it does no harm if they also mind their manners.

Acceptably, there is little left of the English school game exported across the globe, and in some ways we are fortunate for that. The world has changed, and those values do not fit these times. Still, as much as we go on about professionalism and winning, and rewards and marketing, and no-holds barred and anything goes, it also becomes a convenient excuse for every lack of etiquette.

Big business should not conceal the reality that cricket is but a game. Cricketers represent nations, but sometimes they ignore this ambassadorial role, believing status will ensure forgiveness. Kids, who are prone to imitate, are being taught dangerous lessons. And the sport itself is demeaned. What is honour anymore?

It may seem hypocritical these days for soccer players to boot out balls when an opponent is injured or tennis players to point out they are serving with new balls. But if anything, it is a remaining gloss on an ill-mannered sporting world. Being ambitious and wanting to win yet upholding a games spirit are not virtues in conflict. Marion Jones is a champion beyond measure, yet after losing to Heike Dreschler in the Olympic long jump, and thus finding her dream of five golds shattered, she embraced the German and said, "I can tell my grandchildren that I lost to the best long jumper in the world". It was not that hard a sentence to construct but it illuminated that night. Such gestures are few in cricket.

Admittedly, there is no harm in a little needle in cricket, some lively banter, challenges thrown in the press. It is a hard game that asks hard questions, and no one wishes for cricket to become some sand-lot, kid-gloved boyish pursuit. Fast bowlers will never be lambs and we do not wish them to be and under a hot sun tempers will flare. But cricket needs to draw a line in the sand, and it is struggling.

When there was talk of microphones in dressing rooms, and taps on phones, cricketers were incensed at the presumed lack of privacy. Still, it was an idea borne from cricketers' own dishonesty. In the same way, a further set of rules on conduct/spirit would be a sad reflection on the current players. Some policing must be done by themselves. As it is we forget that the third umpire evolved from the reality that players no longer take each other's word that a catch has been taken cleanly.

To Australia's credit, they are talking about it. There has been such spirited reaction to Lee's bowling to Hayward that the criticism almost appears overdone. The young fast bowler has been censured on radio, and in newspaper columns: he has been called childish and churlish, and even his figures against tail-end batsmen versus top-end batsmen have been scrutinised. (Even Waugh, who protected his bowler, was taken to task). There are some Indian players who have got off more lightly for more serious sins.

The Australians want their sport played hard and fair, but some believe there is too much accent on the first and too little on the second. Successful sporting nations are usually too gung-ho and arrogant to find time for reflection and Australia has done well to try and keep its feet grounded. The Australian newspaper, instead of merely gloating at year's end after a heroic year of performance, instead printed a lengthy editorial, entitled: SPORTS-MAD NATION NEEDS MORE GOOD ROLE MODELS.

As they wrote: ..."Part of the problem seems to be that sport is no longer steeped in camaraderie and humility, now it's more winning at any cost, and it seems many Australians are willing to forgive their sports stars almost anything as long as they deliver victory. Surely no parent would want a child to pursue excellence if that meant sledging, abusing umpires and questioning the ability of opponents.Yet we easily forgive those high achievers who do. We're all happy to forgive our Test team for behaving badly and Steve Waugh for letting them."

The Australian is sparking a useful and timely debate and more nations should engage in it. Instead immature and mediocre speculation rules the day.

In England, a laughable complaint is being lodged on behalf of England's players that Sunil Gavaskar's disparaging comments about their team conflicted with his role as the ICC's chairman of cricket. A lot of nonsense has been done and written this year but this is a New Year special.

It is a non-issue, so startlingly petty, that it does not even merit rebuttal. But it gives us a measure of cricket's current thinking.

Most things worth remembering in cricket in 2001 stick in the throat. But, fortunately, not all.

On the final day of the second Australia-South Africa Test, when a steadfast Jacques Kallis was heart-breakingly out at 99, he found his long, quiet walk to the pavilion was constantly interrupted. By Australian players running up to shake his hand.

It was cricket at its best. Honour and respect. It's a pity there's so little spirit left.

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