CRICKETING MATTERS : learn to be graceful and dignified in defeat

Dr K.S.Gupta  [email protected]

What you need to know:

  • Cricket is found uninteresting by those who do not understand its ‘logarithm’. In reality Cricket is an expansive game that accommodates within its fold characters who exhibit various shades of oddity and eccentricity.

The game of Cricket is tinged with incidents which provide it a socio-political or a socio-cultural facet. Cricket when played according to its laid down laws can be serious and no laughing matter.

Cricket is found uninteresting by those who do not understand its ‘logarithm’. In reality Cricket is an expansive game that accommodates within its fold characters who exhibit various shades of oddity and eccentricity.

The tapestry of cricket continues to delight and enthrall those who have become avowed fans of the game after its metamorphosis from Test to the abbreviated t-20 form.

Cricket’s best known charity is the Lord’s Taverners. This was established in 1950 with the help of a few actors who used to assemble at the old tavern, Lord’s Cricket ground. The founding members included the renowned Richard Attenborough of Gandhi fame, Jack Hawkins and the popular broadcaster John Snagge. The first president of the Lord’s Taverners was John Mills. Duke of Edinburgh, who had handed over the instruments of independence to Mwalimu Julius Nyerere in 1961 at the then National Stadium in Dar es Salaam, had agreed to be the ‘Patron and twelfth man,’ a dual role which he performed admirably ever since. Showbiz personalities connected with the film, stage, and sports world play cricket in a spirit of camaraderie with cricketing icons to raise funds for charitable projects. Sixty five years ahead Lord’s Taverners is still actively engaged in raising millions of pounds to help physically compromised children. The Taverners have also a reputation for promoting Cricket in the deprived areas of the cities of U.K.

Dar es Salaam Gymkhana Club and Anadil Burhani, the two financially viable ground owners, should get together to plan a cricket competition for raising money for use of children lying in wait of essential drugs at the Hospital for Cancer patients in Dar es Salaam. Such a gesture would be tantamount to playing cricket for a national cause. This would be much better than ‘whining’ either when the senior national cricket team gets demoted to ICC division 5 or our under 19 boys plummet to the bottom of the points table in the ICC Africa Cup. In trying to do something that is humanitarian our boys and the officials of the national cricket body will perhaps gain some kind of a focus.

In a more lighter vein, Derbyshire and Lancashire were engaged in their County cricket match in June 1975 in Buxton. The Buxton Cricket pitch was affected by snow. The ball was lifting precariously. As Ashley Harvey Walker, the Derbyshire batsman Walked in, he removed his false teeth, wrapped them in a handkerchief and handed that to Dickie Bird, the umpire at the striker’s end. Harvey-Walker, known for his aggressive batting however perished for seven runs. On his way back to the pavilion he collected his teeth from Bird. For Harvey his dentures needed to be protected more than any other of his body part. Dickie Bird while returning the false teeth to Harvey said, “Make sure you hand me over a cleaner pair next time!”.

A right hand bowler with a leg break action delivers a ball that moves from off to leg for a right hand batsman. This is a ‘googly’. For a left hand bowler who bowls normally to a right hand batsman he will have the ball moving from leg to off. However, if the ball moves from off to leg with the same action, this too is a googly but it would be called a ‘chinaman’. The history of the googly is wobbly. When its ‘inventor’, the Middlesex all rounder Bernard Bosanquet, unleashed his mystery ball in a County match against Leicestershire in 1900 the ball bounced four times before reaching Sammy Coe, the batsman who was stumped in more ways than one, for 98. In 1902 Bosanquet was picked by MCC to tour Australia under Pelham Warner. Against New South Wales he clean bowled the great Victor Trumper with the first-ever googly seen in Australia. The googly was thereafter known as ‘Bossie’. Bosanquet’s own description of the devious googly is mind boggling: “It was not unfair, only immoral!”.

If Bosanquet could be so modest about his dexterity, what prevents the ‘coach’ of the national cricket team from stating “We lost badly. Other teams were far superior to us”. That would be more graceful and dignified. Stop the ‘faux pas’.