Playing from Home: January 2006

Sunday, January 29

Thursday, January 26

Reading about cricket seems always to be just round the corner for me. It is not for lack of interest, for I still think of myself as a cricket…well fan. Of the game, then of a team and players. Yet, I would also instinctively not call myself a cricketing illiterate by any stretch, though a fountain of information on it would be a bit much too.
I suppose, if one’s fingers are in pies (such as this blog) that are directly connected to cricket, it also makes sense for one to keep up to date with not only the present but some measure of the past.

How relevant this is for someone who skills lie on the field of play, is quite another thing. We can’t seriously expect a cricketer to be well versed with history, or at least not believe that it is required of him. I must say I was a bit staggered as well with Sehwag’s response. I even ventured to believe that “"No. I don't know anything about them. I haven't heard about them”, could merely mean he wasn’t thinking about Roy and Mankad vis-a vis the partnership he was involved in, but who am I kidding. Harsha Bhogle, for one, believes being scandalised loses out to pragmatism.

I suppose the fact that a leading cricketer is not even aware of a couple of the early heroes of the game in his country could be construed as shameless disregard for heritage. From an Aussie player, for one, I would be truly shocked to see such ignorance. In India though. I think a player’s background plays a huge role. We would expect a Dravid to be well versed with his cricket history- he is, for sure, inspired by it. But a typical Indian team is made up of such a motley bunch- the cultural background, the education, they way they are brought up… all point to unpredictable off-the field profiles of Indian cricketers.

Atherton’s absorbing piece on not bunking history draws this out:

It won't make him a better player, but it gives him a link with both the past and the future; it provides some context and some meaning, so that, long after the bones have stiffened and the eyes have gone, it still matters. He is simply one link in the chain.

I think another part of his piece mixes up the issue though. The tradition of a player number being stitched on to shirts and caps might not be widespread in the cricketing world, but is one that mostly draws approving nods. A sense of history, is what we say it provides. In saying the very England players who displayed a scant knowledge of their cricketing history are the ones who instigated this tradition, he figures that:

By instigating such a custom, today's players show a surreptitious interest in what went before them and, by inference, what will come after them.

For me, this is different from learning about your cricketing past to give context to your present. A player number is just that. It probably gives a sense of existence; a feeling that you are part of a honour-roll of a select few that have represented the country; more a sense of self than an awareness of context; you are a link in the chain, but with an identity.

But that’s just me. If you ask Sehwag about 239, he’ll probably just say it’s a low score for him.

> Vaneisa Baksh, to finish off her longish piece inspired by Lagaan, points young people in the game toward cricket literature. (hat tip: ryan)

Tuesday, January 24

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gift

Monday, January 23

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Of inevitability and power

Sometime in the near future, you can expect to see a stodgy but articulate chap standing on one leg, hands firmly grasped around a mouldy pillar, its base creaking in crumbling mud. That chap would be ol’ Athers, and the pillar he’ll be so dearly clinging onto will be an illusion borne of an archaic impression of the world order.

At best sharp, precise and handy with his laptop; at worst Michael Atherton has shown glimpses of a perspective still mired in a word I myself am loathe to use- a colonial attitude. If he has his way, we will all be standing with him in that very quagmire. Except, as he himself points out, a lot of the people in the cricketing world are not from that order, and do not believe- indeed, have no reason to- in the need for a continuance of status quo.
It seems pretty obvious to most but the likes of him, that there is no justification for the home seasons, or itineraries, of England and Australia to be sacrosanct, and those of the others pliable accordingly. Nor is there any reason for those with the financial clout to let those without it run the game as they wish.

Yet, for me, this is not about Michael Atherton, nor his diatribe against the BCCI, nor his new-found passion for the ICC. At the end of it all, it calls for little surprise, that the one member that effectively funds this sport, is the one who will call most of the shots. It may not be the best setup, but it is the most inevitable in a sport that is as much about bat and ball as about banks and balance sheets. Romanticism about a sport that uplifts and impassions first and earns people money later, is exactly that- a rose-tinted view that I would be the first to enjoy, but one none of us can realistically expect the world to live by.

What pinches in all of this- in fact, has pinched since well before the doughty former England opener stirred up sub continental indignation- is the way the inevitability of today’s cricket world seems to panning out. The alacrity with which the new BCCI regime has fast-tracked it’s new ideas smacks less of the desire to right any perceived wrongs, and more of a frenzied wish to rake in as much as they can while the cherry is still red. Worse, it reeks of a selfishness that is, if not unexpected, particularly distasteful in its intensity. It would have made sense- for themselves more than anyone else- if the BCCI had, for once, delved into their musty tact-store and used some of that precious commodity. With their obvious economic strength in the game comes the requirement for grounded feet and, dare I say, even some good-heartedness. That they project neither is a sad, disheartening and unnerving truth.
Perhaps they missed out on the Spiderman phenomenon, or they might have listened to old Uncle Parker’s advice. You know- that bit about great power and responsibility…

Meanwhile, Athers would do well to cling on not to that pillar of cricket he is rooting for, but rather to the lip-smacking prospect of new traditions being created, and co-existing with the old ones.