Cricket is now bereft of its halo
It isn’t cricket—that is an Englishman’s expression for what is not fair play.
Cricket was one game invested with a kind of halo. Bereft of that halo, it has been sent into wilderness after the emergency meeting of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) last Sunday.
It is a sorry state of affairs and with suggestions like legalising betting on the course of matches, it looks like the doomsday close at hand for cricket as a game; doomsday at least for the Indian Premier League (IPL). One man who should be happy about the transformation of a sport into a wholely business proposition is Lalit Modi, whose bid to be an official of the Rajasthan Association was effectively stopped some six years ago.
But the man who caused the ‘halo’to vanish was an Englishman named Douglas Jardine. He was England skipper and in the Ashes test series in Australia, he compelled his fast bowler, Harold Larwood to target the batsman’s body more than the stumps, all in a desperate bid to subdue prolific scorer Don Bradman. Opening batsmen got injured, but The Don stood up to the ‘bodyline’ bowling as it was called. The Don was said to have moved a bit towards the leg-umpire to tackle the ball. He could still notch a century. That was the true Don! This was before the WWII, and Jardine did not have criticism heaped on him for ‘unfair’ playing tactics. The ‘fair play’ halo vanished from the expression that very day.
Interestingly, Larwood migrated to Australia and lived there till his demise. Larwood had to obey his captain implicitly for he was a ‘player’ as distinct from ‘gentleman’. Most bowlers were ‘players’ for they got paid. And the ‘gentlemen’ played for the pleasure the game provided. Until the rule for bowling in an over came in being, India captain Nari Contractor got his head fractured during a series of matches in West Indies. Bouncers were then limited to just two per over.
The BCCI needs to be changed into ‘BBCCI’—the additional B is to indicate the blackening of the board. Its very character has been altered. That there are still some hardboiled officials to ‘serve’ the board is a marvel, the whole caucus doesn’t seem to feel a sense of utter shame. There was no ‘control’ even at the Sunday meeting, each of them looking the other way.
An interesting side-show was the publication of Srinivasan’s face on the news pages with the red tilak on his forehead. It indicated that he was of religious bent of mind. It is perplexing to find him stubbornly sticking to his chair.
One daily morninger put the whole affair succinctly. “t-20 to 420” in bold print was the catch line topping the page dealing with the cricket affairs. The number in hindi will be read as char sow bees and that makes a greater impact.
The very sitting of the board can be labelled as “it was all 420”.
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