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Cricket is not a gentleman’s game

Nor does it need to be
PHOTO: REUTERS
Monday’s match between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, two of the worst performing teams in this year’s World Cup, was as dead as a dead rubber gets. Champions Trophy qualification was still on the line, but in the broader context of the World Cup, few besides Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans would have been paying attention. But the Bangladesh team kept pace with their pre-tournament reputation of creating drama. In fact, they created history this time by invoking the first-ever instance of a “timed out” dismissal in international cricket.
Every time a batter gets out in an unconventional manner during a cricket match, some fans are quick to put on their judgemental hats and bring up the dated arguments dominated by two phrases: “the Spirit of Cricket” and “the gentleman’s game.” Cricket’s origins do go back to the English aristocrats, who would sit down at high tea and clap softly as other gentlemen in all-white knocked the ball around a park. But the professionalisation and globalisation of the game has changed all this. The epicentre of global cricket is now in South Asia, where the game is competitive at all levels. Players for every national team play under immense pressure, and they are expected to take every legal advantage to win.
Beyond all that, fans need to understand that calling cricket the “gentleman’s game” has classist connotations in today’s day and age. The origin of the phrase goes back to the 17th century, when English aristocats playing it made the game more popular. They decreed that the game should be played in a gentlemanly manner. This decree has meant different things during the different historical periods of the game—as cricket moved from being the game of the nobles and the affluent living on a tiny island on the edge of the Atlantic, to becoming a game played by officers in colonies across the world. The high barrier of entry to the game, the expensive equipment, and the fact that modern cricket had originated from an upper class within a highly stratified English society resulted in the phrase “gentleman’s game” being used to exclude people from the game—an attempt that has failed in our part of the world, where cricket is by far the most popular game across classes.
But that didn’t mean the classism and the judgement had left the game of cricket. When Vinoo Mankad first ran someone out at the non-striker’s end, the Australian media had a field day. When the Pakistanis invented the art of swinging the old ball and dominated batters with their skill, they were called cheats and accused of ball tampering. Wasim Akram, the legendary Pakistani bowler, is often heard saying that once the English learned the art themselves, “ball tampering” was conveniently renamed “reverse swing.” Sri Lankan legend Muttiah Muralitharan exploited a unique physical feature on his right elbow to spin the ball around corners and take hundreds of wickets, but no amount of testing his bowling action to prove its legality could dissuade some from claiming he was bending his elbow illegally (also known as “chucking”) while bowling. The dominant West Indians possibly faced the worst of it in the 70s, when the venerated former player and commentator, Tony Greig, said he wanted to make them “grovel.” The word had racist connotations, given that many of the Caribbean players had ancestry going back to enslaved people. Tony Greig, on the other hand, was born in South Africa during Apartheid.
Cricket is played seriously by a very small number of nations across the world, and they can broadly be divided into two categories: countries where the colonists had brought the sport and kept it for themselves, and countries where the colonised fell in love with the sport and made it their own. For the latter category, cricket’s perception is vastly different from the original one championed by the English. In the South Asian subcontinent, for example, cricket is an obsession—the national teams’ wins and losses directly correlate to the national mood. The “gentleman’s game” is hardly a consideration when teams are desperate to win, and when losses mean that a player’s personality and personal life will be lambasted across social media.
Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are cut from similar cloths when it comes to how cricket is perceived in our respective societies, and in this year’s World Cup, both teams have struggled to get a win. The desperation was palpable, and the fact that Bangladesh took a legal—albeit rare—advantage understandably rubbed the Sri Lankans the wrong way. But using words like “disgraceful” and “shameful” to describe Shakib Al Hasan’s actions ignores the larger picture of what cricket is to us. Bangladesh needed to win, and here was an opportunity that was perfectly legal. So, the captain took it. It was the batter’s responsibility to be ready to face the ball within the time limit, and he wasn’t. The equipment failure is a non-factor, because the batter never informed the umpires or the opposition captain before walking off looking for a replacement.
The “Spirit of Cricket,” in reality, is the preamble to the Laws of Cricket published by the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), cricket’s oldest and most respected institution. I own a copy of the MCC’s Laws of Cricket, and took the time to check the literature. It says that respect is central to the Spirit of Cricket. Players are expected to respect their captains, other players, and the umpires. The game is to be played hard, but fair. A positive atmosphere should be created by the players’ conduct, and players must show self-discipline. Players are also expected to congratulate and thank the opposition no matter the end result.
So, did Angelo Mathews respect the umpires or the Bangladeshi team when he walked off to fix a helmet without facing a ball and without getting a nod of approval from Shakib or the umpires, whereas Bangladesh was behind on over-rate at that point in the game? Did the Sri Lankan team respect the umpire’s decision when Mathews was given out? What about the repeated verbal exchanges between the teams when Bangladesh was batting later on in the evening? And where was the Spirit of Cricket when the Sri Lankan players didn’t even shake hands with the Bangladeshi dressing room at the end of the game?
The truth is that the Spirit of Cricket is a loose framework of principles that is broken by most teams on most days, as told by former professionals in the aftermath of this incident. We are at a point where cricket fans, players, and administrators across the world need to think about whether they will foster the principles of competitiveness and professionalism that will drive the game towards becoming a true global phenomenon, or if they want to continue being haunted by the ghost of an English aristocracy that once envisioned the game as one reserved for gentlemen, to be played on sunny days during the English summer, enjoyed alongside a cup of English breakfast tea which, if we’re all being honest, tastes a bit bland.