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« Inside Mr. Inconsistent | That's rich »
September 17, 2008Posted by Samir Chopra on 09/17/2008 in Samir Chopra
Cricket and all of the rest
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Back in the days of Limited Media Coverage of Cricket [tm], the world seemed quite simple: there was the time that cricket was played, and there was the time it wasn't. One somehow found the means to get through those gaps as best as one could, and one dealt with the deprivation with a stiff upper lip (or a downcast one, depending on your personal style). Gaps between games were painful, and I dreaded the closing credits of television broadcasts. Cricket analysis only appeared when games were on, and the surrounding discussions were sketchy at best (or so it felt). One's anticipation was sharpened, and the limited diet of games only added to the sense of a scarce and valuable resource.
But now cricket coverage is 24/7; the administrative, political, and financial trappings of the game are quite extensive and obscure (and hence invite commentary); and thus, we are exposed to a lot of material on all that surrounds the game. While some of this is genuinely illuminative, there comes a time when I find myself thirsting for the very business that prompts all this verbiage in the first place. For this conversation, rather than magnifying the game, sometimes starts to make the game feel a bit small, a bit incidental to the business of television rights, travel permissions, player contracts, personalities, labor relations and all of the rest. And sometimes this conversation doesn't act as a filler or illuminator; sometimes it just makes me miss the simplicity of the game more.
One of the most refreshing aspects of Ajantha Mendis' debut in Test cricket was how much he forced the conversation surrounding cricket to be about playing: the different deliveries; how he was to be combated; the various minor successes against him; his tactics; all of them very good cricketing discussions to be had, and all directly relevant to the enjoyment of the game in front of us. For one brief period, the discussions about cricket were about the performances and the battles that make the game worthwhile. It was a splendid break from the Political Economy of International Cricket or The Power Relations of Post Colonial Sporting Economies or Race Relations in 21st Century Cricket or whatever.
I enjoy that sort of analysis myself and dabble a bit it in it from time to time. Indeed, our appreciation for the game can be enhanced by a consideration of the contexts it is played in, its history and its internal relations. Still, it's a game (a fact always enhanced by an actual visit to a cricket stadium), and sometimes it cries out for simplification to bare essentials, to a revealing of its basic nature and its fundamental simplicities.
As the guard in ‘Run, Lola, Run’ says at the beginning of the movie, when speaking of football: In the end, its 22 players and a ball. The rest is detail.
Posted by: Mina Anand at September 17, 2008 6:34 PM
A refreshingly 'back to basics' piece.
Takes one straight to the crease.
Yes, cricket is, in the end 22-22
22 players, a 22-yards pitch
A bat, a ball – and that’s all
And yes, the commentators’ call…..
Posted by: Vijay Padmanabhan at September 17, 2008 7:23 PM
Cricket seems to be going in the path of globalization in unknown territories where cricket is talked only if someone needs a laugh or sarcasm abt the game. as u said, Mendis really bought attention to how the game has wonderful varitations from such a maverick bowler , apart from that we hear only million dollar deals signed by BCCI and ICL and which format is the game of the future. Its sad that only the money the format brings in are discussed and not the variety and beauty each format brings in...
Posted by: Mohan at September 18, 2008 2:10 AM
Sounds like a kid desperately pleading, "please don't tell me Santa isn't for real". What all this 24x7 coverage does is to put the reality of cricket in front of the fans. From then, it is up to them to judge it for what it is. I can understand why one would hanker for simpler times, but I would much rather prefer people being aware of the reality than be under some kind of illusion.
Posted by: Swami at September 19, 2008 6:04 AM
Nice article. Good to see someone yearning for old times when cricket seemed to be the only bright point of the day. I remember the late 80s and early 90s when listening to cricket commentary was the norm, espcially when India toured abroad. You said it right. In those days the gap between 2 series seemed interminable, and merely waiting for the beginning of a new cricket season made me feel downcast.
Gone are those days. The series against Australia is starting next month. Frankly, I dont feel the same excitement I would have felt 20 years back.
Posted by: Retta at January 27, 2012 6:58 AM
Which came first, the problem or the solution? Lucikly it doesn't matter.
- Shanaka Amarasinghe
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Shanaka Amarasinghe Possessing the best disguised googly in Sri Lanka (because no one has ever really seen it), Shanaka is the finest legspinner to never have played top-level cricket. He is a popular cricket analyst and host of The Score, the No. 1-rated, if slightly infamous, sports show on radio in Sri Lanka. While in England playing rugby, he earned his LLM at King’s College and is a lawyer by training if not inclination. He is also an actor, a journalist, a writer, and thinks he is a comedian.
- Mike Holmans
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Mike Holmans, a database consultant by profession, has spent thirty summers (and a few winters) going to the cricket. Brought up in one and working in the other, his dearest wish is for a season to end with Yorkshire winning the county championship by beating runners-up Middlesex by one wicket with five minutes to go. If it’s also a summer when England win the Ashes, so much the better.
- Michael Jeh
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Michael Jeh Born in Colombo, educated at Oxford and now living in Brisbane, Michael Jeh (Fox) is a cricket lover with a global perspective on the game. An Oxford Blue who played first-class cricket, he is a Playing Member of the MCC and still plays grade cricket. Michael now works closely with elite athletes, and is passionate about youth intervention programmes. He still chases his boyhood dream of running a wildlife safari operation called Barefoot in Africa.
- Saad Shafqat
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Saad Shafqat takes special pride that his cricket-watching life began during the three-month interval between Javed Miandad's debut Test in Lahore and Imran Khan's 12-wicket haul at Sydney. Although a practicing neurologist based in Karachi, cricket has never been far from his activities. He has co-authored Javed Miandad’s autobiography Cutting Edge and has been a contributor to Cricinfo since 2005. His regular column Reverse Swing appears fortnightly in Dawn, Pakistan’s leading English daily.
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