THE MELBOURNE WALKOUT AND THE MYTH THEREOF, EVEN NOW PERSISITING, COURTESY OUR INDOLENCE IN COMBATING IT

THE MELBOURNE WALKOUT AND THE MYTH THEREOF, EVEN NOW PERSISITING, COURTESY OUR INDOLENCE IN COMBATING IT 

Gavaskar did not stage the walkout in Melbourne, 1981, after being adjudged lbw to a thick edge off his bat onto his pad because the umpire had got it wrong but because the Australian players had abused him filthily, what today would have earned them a heavy fine under the new ICC Code of Conduct. This is not highlighted at all and even today the episode is recounted casting Gavaskar in poor light as a sportsman. Lillee's abominable behaviour in this context is not spoken of at all.

Australian sportsmanship is very well known. From Dennis Lillee's disgusting on-field behaviour to Greg Chappell asking his younger brother Trevor Chappell to underarm his way to an Australian one-day victory over New Zealand to Steve Waugh's abominable forging of a new epithet for sledging as 'mental disintegration', all these are sharply in contrast to what Bill Woodfull held true to his heart as playing the game in its true spirit, an attitude that earned him the displeasure of Victor Richardson, the grandfather of the Chappell brothers, who believed in 'an eye for an eye' principle when it came to tackling Bodyline. Things have much deteriorated since as sledging has become normal in Australian cricket, nay, an integral part of it, and has percolated into the cricketing culture of all Test-playing nations. This is regrettable as it is totally opposed to everything the game ideally stands for and stood for largely through its history in practice as well. Barring the Bodyline aberration or Lloyd's Sabina Park, 1980, degeneration as skipper when he resorted to like terms to hit India out of contention in the fourth Test, cricket, despite the occasional overstepping the sporting line, has been played in its true spirit.

What today is rationalised as gamesmanship and has through usage become commonplace and, so, gradually in turn been accepted as norm, was once the height of unsportmanship and was abhorred as not quite cricket. Sir Donald Bradman, when asked for his view on sledging, categorically denied its occurrence during his playing days and thought it to be an improper practice in modern-day cricket -- for which Sir Don will have to thank his thankless successors of later generations --, a practice that ought to be done away with. He was firm in his view and said that if any such incident had ever occurred under his captaincy, he would have warned the offender once and should it have recurred, he would have seen to it that such a one was not selected again. These were strong words, words which should echo through the corridors of cricket today if cricketers have any respect for that great man, the greatest of them all. Mere lip-service will not do. Dennis Lillee, Greg Chappell, Clive Lloyd, Douglas Jardine and Steve Waugh have reduced the respectworthiness of the game and made it just like any other sport from which cricket maintained safe distance thus far through its superior ethical attribute. But no more. It is now a rowdy's game in some sense which tries to put up the pretence of civility by calling its nefarious element (read, sledging/mental disintegration) as essential to maintaining on-field vibrancy for sportsman and spectator alike. Reprehensible, I say, when lowered culture assumes scriptural justification of sorts (read, 'Note the Devil doth cite the scripture for his purpose.' -- Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare).

So, to return to the main story. When in one of India's tours Down Under Ricky Ponting disastrously dared to cross the line and reminded the cricketing world of Gavaskar's infamous walkout episode at MCG in 1981, the Little Master reminded him that he was then too small to be able to catch the nuances of the abuse hurled by his country's cricketers on him after the lbw decision. Ponting was silenced and preferred discretion as the better part of valour.

Indian cricket fans, this is for you. Do read up well on the cricket history of your country and feel proud where pride is truly due. But for this to happen, you must shed your assumptions of love for the game and earnestly nurture genuine love for it by engaging yourselves in ardent study of its laws, lores and loves, not just indulging in casual conversation on it or, worse still, merely jumping up and down the stadium stands, flag in hand, painted black and blue, and shouting hoarse coarse slogans which you call cheering your equally cricket-efficient ignoramus heroes on the field. Then and only then can you call yourselves champions of the game or, as you so often like to erroneously put it, devotees of this new religion called 'Cricket'. Till then Gavaskar must wait for his due retribution other than what he himself avenged that day through his early declaration of the Indian innings and then bowling out Australia for a paltry 83, courtesy that great fast bowler, Kapil Dev, who overcame injury to return figures of 5 for 28 and win the Test Match for India, thus levelling the series 1-1.

Written by Sugata Bose

Comments: 

Sugata Bose @Sumit Mukerji : Why are you sorry? Is abuse of parents and lineage as Lilleee and company indulged in that day anything worth being rated above what today has assumed monstrous proportions as the Australian practice of 'mental disintegration'? And have I in the article absolved Steve Waugh as such of this nefarious practice?