CHEATING IS NOT GAMESMANSHIP, NEITHER IS GAMESMANSHIP CRICKET

CHEATING IS NOT GAMESMANSHIP, NEITHER IS GAMESMANSHIP CRICKET 

The Aussies so often do not play just hard cricket. They plain cheat and that is not quite cricket. Justin Langer was out after a huge hit to the first slip off a ball from Chaminda Vaas. But he pretended having not hit it. The Aussies are masters at such pretence and they call it playing as per the rules. But that is against the spirit of the game. It is just not cricket to cheat thus, abuse opponents and label it as mental disintegration, and do whatever it takes to win. Cut-throat competition is not cricket. It is a gentleman's game and the sooner it is restored to its pristine status the better for the game.

It is not that Englishmen haven't cheated either. The great Dr.W.G.Grace is fabled to have often resorted to dubious means to staying put at the wicket while batting even when he had been declared out by the umpire and to taking wickets in a like manner when bowling. The bodyline tactics of Douglas Jardine to curb Bradman's batting prowess is the most notorious instance of violation of the game's spirit. Clive Lloyd's tactics of bodyline bowling at Sabina Park, Kingston against India in 1976 was another gross violation of the spirit of cricket. John Snow's deliberate pushing of Gavaskar in his run in 1971 and Dennis Lillee's obstructing Javed Miandad in his run and then kicking him followed by Miandad's charging at him with his upraised bat are two other instances of dubious on-field behaviour of cricketers. Likewise in 1981 Lillee and company's provoking Gavaskar with obscene abuses that led to an irate Gavaskar threatening to  call off his partner Chetan Chauhan from the field was another instance of Aussie cricketing culture reaching its nadir. Ricky Ponting's abysmal on-field attitude against the visiting Indians in 2003, Pakistan bowling overhead bouncers to thwart India of a one-day win during the friendship series in Pakistan 1978-79, umpiring standards plummeting in West Indies, Pakistan, Australia and, worst of all, New Zealand against Lloyd's West Indians which provoked Croft abd Holding to shoving the umpire and kicking the stumps out -- all these have brought the game to disrepute. Umpiring bias in favour of the home team over decades has duly played its role in ushering in third country umpires into play who are unfortunately called neutral umpires, the latter name by implication labelling earlier umpires as partial.

The game has evolved, is ever evolving but scruples in cricket are declining. Overmuch of money in the game has made cricketers greedy, shorn of integrity and devoid of morals, so much so that match-fixing, spot-fixing and the like have become regular features of the game. Players keep selling their soul, even the very best of them, for the silver coin. This is the sad state of affairs but the saddest part is that this corrosive, corruption of commerce in cricket thrives with the active assistance of the most iconic figures of the game and by the rationisation of greed as necessity in an age corrupted to the core by the all-pervasive influence of commerce. The selling of self-respect by players to earn the dear dollar has brought the game to disrepute. And yet these jewels ('ratnas' in Indian terms) pretend allegiance to the game when all that they care pre and post retirement is to milk hard the cash-cow that is cricket.

Written by Sugata Bose