Odds and trends - recent gleanings from the world of cricket

Prem Panicker

Given the amount of cricket being played these days, there is precious little time - or even energy - left at the end of the day to look at off-the-ball matters.

But in recent times, a whole heap of little incidents have cried out for attention. So what follows is a quick look at these gleanings, from the world of cricket. And as usual, this is merely one half of the exercise, the other half involves monitoring your response to the issues discussed here...

Thou shalt not sledge

On the eve of the first Test between South Africa and Australia at the Wanderers', in Johannesburg, South African coach Bob Woolmer in a media briefing said something that I reproduce verbatim: "Sledging? I am all in favour. Cricket wouldn't be the same without it, and I hope it never changes. As long as verbal abuse does not become too personal or vitriolic, it can actually stimulate the players. I learnt the art of sledging from the Australians, and came to enjoy it. It is unfair to ask cricketers to play in front of a crowd of 30,000, with millions more watching on television, and expect them to show no emotion."

Ah?! How very, very interesting indeed. I wonder if Mr Woolmer, who has come out strongly in defense of sledging, has in his time as player and later as coach ever come across a document put out by the ICC, and headlined Code of Conduct for international fixtures? If he has, has he skimmed through the same? And in course of his skimming, has his eye been arrested, even momentarily, by Clause two, which specifically says that all forms of verbal aggression on the field of play, defined in the vernacular as sledging, is expressly forbidden?

When rules of play forbid a particular practise, how then does the coach of an international team get away with supporting it? Are rules meant to be enforced, or can we in these lax modern times pick and choose the rules that we will obey, and the ones we won't?

Mr Woolmer talks of the pressures of playing cricket before millions. By the same token, those millions react very strongly when one of their favourite players fail, right? Right. So let us say X is batting, gets a ball which he edges onto his pads, and the umpire gives him out LBW. Is it then okay, given the pressures of playing, and failing before, millions of spectators for player X to refuse to heed the decision of the umpire, and to stand on his own conviction that he is not out?

Frankly, it is rather sad that a coach of Woolmer's stature should make a comment of this nature in a public forum. If he believes that an existing rule is wrong, then the right place to debate it is in the ICC - one thing a responsible official cannot do is defend as acceptable a practise that the game's governing body has expressly outlawed.

Wicket, wicket ways

When a touring side visits India and succumbs to spin, the cry goes up: 'India doctors its pitches to suit its bowlers'.

Which, frankly, is true. What surprises me, though, is why this outcry is only heard when teams are visiting India. Are we to understand that this is a uniquely Indian practise? That no other side prepares its wickets to suit its own strengths?

In this context, a statement made by Clive Lloyd, manager of the West Indies team, before the recently concluded first Cable and Wireless Test between India and West Indies is interesting. On Monday March 2, Lloyd gave an interview to a Kingston, Jamaica newspaper in which he blasted the Jamaica Cricket Association and the groundstaff thereof for preparing a placid wicket for the first Test against India at Sabina Park.

Two days later, on Wednesday, Lloyd addressed a media conference and again reiterated his disappointment and disgust with the wicket that had been prepared at the venue. And he lashed the groundstaff for failing to provide a wicket that would have been to the advantage of the home team. "The Sabina Park wicket for the first Test is not to our liking," LLoyd said. "In fact, it is a disaster. This is not the way a home advantage should be utilised."

Reading between the lines, it does appear that other teams are not averse to tailoring home wickets to their own advantage. Fair enough. But then, why do these same teams react with such palpable anger and outrage when they tour India and find the home side doing the same?

From heroes to zeroes

All through India's recent tour of South Africa, the media there had backed its team to the hilt. In fact, a native South African who had discovered Rediff while looking for what the "other side" had to say, sent me an e-mail which I quote in part: "I was glad to stumble across your site and read a refreshingly different point of view, because I was getting heartily sick of the local media. Reading the reports in the South African press, I got the idea that there was only one team playing cricket out there, and that team the very best in the world, probably the best of all time..."

Less than a fortnight later, South Africa went down to its worst ever defeat in 33 years when Australia wrapped up the first Test of the ongoing series by a margin of an innings and 196 runs. And guess what? The South African media's response was a blistering attack on the home side - the same media, mind you, that had before the Test began had hyped it as the contest to decide the unofficial world championship of Test cricket.

After the first Test, however, the unanimous verdict is "No contest". "South Africa's prospects in the remaining two Tests look dire, because it has no better prospects to fall back on," went an editorial in a leading daily. And almost every single article in the local press slammed the home side as a bunch of over-hyped cricketers.

Funny, isn't it, how we in the media raise teams sky high after a win, and slam them following a defeat? The sense of balance, of perspective, seems sadly missing from both the media and the fans, of late. The fact of the matter is that there are nine nations that have been accorded full Test-playing status by the ICC and of late, the playing field has pretty much levelled itself out. Today, each of those nations are capable of beating any of the others on their day. Recent results are an indication of this overturning of the formbook - England makes heavy weather of it in Zimbabwe, then wins handily against the higher rated New Zealand. Sri Lanka, riding the World Champions of one-day cricket tag, goes down to the Kiwis in the longer version of the game. South Africa, supposedly the pretenders to the world crown, are blasted inside of the distance by Australia. And I'll lay you whatever odds you like that before the ongoing season ends, you will find even more astonishing results to underline this point.

Meanwhile, the media goes its merry way, building teams up one day, ripping them to shreds the next. Mike Atherton could write a book on the subject - the boy wonder of England cricket was pilloried following the Zimbabwe tour, but following the win over New Zealand, he is once again being hyped as the greatest thing to have happened to English cricket since W G Grace.

I wonder if the people who put individuals, and teams, on pedestals and topple them again the day after are aware of the enormous pressures they are subjecting the players, and the teams, to?

In an earlier age, when you read a cricket report, you knew what happened on the field of play. Today, 'reportage' is mostly sound and fury, signifying very little.

But then again, as a friend pointed out, this is the age of hard-sell.

Split vision

The most distressing item in recent times centers around the candidature of BCCI secretary Jagmohan Dalmiya for the post of chairman of the International Cricket Council, come July 1997.

Last week, the media in India and elsewhere carried unattributed reports suggesting that if Dalmiya were to be elected, countries like England, Australia and New Zealand would take the lead in splitting cricket's govering body, and forming a parallel association.

The first thing that strikes you about the report is that no one person or persons has been named as making the threat. In journalistic circles, they call this tactic the 'floating of a trial balloon'. A technique whereby people in authority call a friendly source in the media and make a pronouncement on the condition that their names not be mentioned. The idea is to have the statement carried in the media columns, with a view to guaging the subsequent public response before deciding whether or not to go the whole hog.

You see it all the time in politics, for example. Out of the blue, there is a statement that X is a contestant for a prime electoral post. Ask X, and he says, 'Who, me? No, I have never said any such thing. Of course, if that is the will of the people...'

You can guess the rest.

The statement regarding the possibility of a split in the ICC has every indication of being a trial balloon, sent up to see what the response is. And what intrigues me is the identity of the person or persons who floated it in the first place.

If the threat is on the up and up, then it is deplorable in the extreme. Elections are supposed to be democratic exercises, wherein the electorate has the right to choose the best possible candidate from among those in the fray. For one section of the electorate to threaten a split if a particular candidate wins is to make a mockery of the whole process.

There is another factor to be considered - the naming of England, Australia and New Zealand as the countries likely to take the lead in breaking away from the ICC. There has in recent times been a belief, especially in the sub-continent, that England prefers to run the ICC like an exclusive country club, a sort of 'whites only' forum wherein the other nations are there by sufferance, to be seen but not heard. Old-timers in the sub-continent will recall 'whites only' bars and restaurants run on similar lines, during the days of the British Raj.

There is a word for this: racism. Or, if you like, apartheid.

And that England, that great bastion of democracy and equality, should take the lead in fostering such attitudes is doubly deplorable.

Then again, the problem with trial balloons is that you are never sure who filled it up with all that hot air in the first instance. I am probably doing the English (and Australian, and New Zealand) cricket establishments an injustice by suggesting that they are responsible for the published threat.

If so, I apologise with all my heart.

But one question continues to niggle: if the English, Australian and New Zealand cricket establishments had no hand in the publication of that threat, why then have they not been quick off the mark to repudiate it? I wish I knew the answer to that one. Or rather, I wish the answer that suggests itself to my mind is not the right one.

Meanwhile, one other thought on the subject: let us assume that the threat is for real. That Dalmiya's possible election will lead to a split in the cricket establishment. If that is the case, then I am, frankly, all for it - if the governing body of cricket has become so cloistered that there is no room in it any longer for different voices, if the ICC has over the years degenerated into a private little club for the privileged few, then its breaking up, I suggest, is no great loss. In fact, such an eventuality could well lead to a clean-up of the cricket establishment, to the ushering in of an era where all sides are equal not only in words, but in actual fact.

The great Indian playing field

To those fans of Indian writing in English, he is the author of The Great Indian Novel - that wickedly funny attempt at transposing India's post-Independence polity onto the fabric of that ancient epic, the Mahabharat.

To those who follow international politics and diplomacy, he is the Executive Assistant to the Secretary General of the United Nations.

Besides these public personae, Dr Shashi Tharoor also happens to be a die-hard cricket fan, taking time off from his duties at the UN to follow the game via the Internet.

The recent debate on possible reforms to the selection process as obtained in India drew from Dr Tharoor a detailed response. What interested me even more, though, was a couple of other suggestions relating to revitalising the game in India.

His suggestion is that Sri Lanka (possibly, even Sri Lanka A and Sri Lanka B) be inducted into the Duleep Trophy. And that Bangladesh be given entree into the Ranji Trophy competition.

Both innovations, Dr Tharoor argues, will have the twin advantages of giving the players of those countries invaluable first class experience, while providing local players more opportunities to play against good opposition.

His other suggestion adapts from the English county system, and moots the possibility of each Ranji Trophy team to be allowed to recruit one overseas player (an innovation briefly introduced in the 1950s, and subsequently shelved). Again, the advantage is obvious - Indian players would, in course of domestic competition, be able to play against some quality international bowlers and, thereby, get a taste of what the big leagues are all about.

So much for his suggestions - now let's hear your views...

The strange case of Noel David

On the chat part of our commentary site the other day, someone suggested that I had got into the habit, of late, of constantly finding fault with the BCCI. "Don't spoil our breakfast with your diatribes, PP," he suggested.

Well, I certainly hope he - and all the rest of you - have ingested, and digested, your breakfasts before you get down to reading this. Because try as I might, I can find no way to avoid letting loose a little arrow aimed at the august body that controls the destiny of Indian cricket and its cricketers.

My grouse relates to the Noel David affair. For those who came in late, the national selectors picked a squad to the West Indies that excluded an off spinner despite a specific request from the Indian skipper. Asked about the omission, chairman of the national selectors Ramakant Desai snapped: "Show me an off spinner in the country capable of taking wickets, and I will select him."

The team left for the Windies and, three days after arrival, ace paceman Javagal Srinath's shoulder packed in. Srinath was forced to go to South Africa, for diagnosis and treatment at the hands of shoulder injury specialist Dr Mark Ferguson. And this, of course, reduced the strength of the touring party to 15.

The selectors huddled together, and came up with the name of Noel David. No, said BCCI secretary and selection committee convenor Jagmohan Dalmiya, David is not going as replacement for the injured fast bowler. Rather, David is the off-spinner Tendulkar had requested.

Where the chairman of national selectors discovered this off spinner from, just a week after asserting that there was none of the breed in the country, remains an unanswered question.

But what is of interest here is the fact that David, who was picked two days before the first Test began at Sabina Park, continued to cool his heels in his native Hyderabad until just two days ago. And in the event, has reached the West Indies just 48 hours before the start of the second Test.

Consider that Sachin Tendulkar has never seen him bowl, and it is obvious that the Indian skipper cannot consider him for the team for the second Test. So that effectively reduces his options to 14 players. And in that, one is a reserve wicket keeper - so again, the options open to Tendulkar are reduced to 13. Out of which he has to pick 11 players, and one 12th man. Even Hobson, of legend and song, had more choices to play with, methinks.

What is intriguing is the question of why David took as long as he did, after his selection, to board the flight to the Caribbean. Word from Hyderabad is that the Test aspirant was all packed and ready within hours of receiving his call - and that he spent the next few days twiddling his thumbs, waiting for the BCCI to finish the paperwork and hand him his flight tickets and the rest of the necessary papers.

Contrast this with an earlier incident, and you will understand the source of my concern - when the team was picked, the person selected as administrative manager opted out on grounds of ill health. Within 12 hours, the incumbent - B V Subba Rao - was selected, his papers were prepared, and he was ready to fly out to the Caribbean with the Indian squad.

That is an example of unrivalled promptitude. And the present instance - wherein there is a gap of two weeks between the injury to Srinath and the arrival in the Caribbean of David - an example of unconcern for the needs of the touring side.

There is, of course, one major difference between the two incidents - the first concerns an administrator, the second concerns a player.

So when you have finished feeding your face, you tell me where the Board's priorities lie.