Why KP should go

Those wicked guys at The Spin, are they really Englishmen? Bad enough they support Kevin Pietersen, but in the face of such incontrovertible evidence? After everything that has happened, The Spin argues that England needs to find a way to keep its only consistently genuine star as happy as possible ahead of the Ashes. But why? And at what cost?

The Spin will do well to remember that it operates from the land that introduced the wonderful game to all of us. The one game that embraces defeat as much as, if not more than, victory. It’s about playing the game, ain’t it? It’s about the spirit of the game, did I hear you say? Sign up here for an ECB life membership.

Look at what KP has done. Forget that he gave up his native South Africa and agreed to represent the English. Forget that he averages 51.09 after 50 tests and 46.65 after 91 ODIs, with a strike rate of 87.24. Mere numbers these. Even if they are better than that of any English player on display today. Playing the game is not just about batting and batting well, is it? The English of all people ought to know this better.

Look at what KP has done. He is bestowed the ultimate honour of the land, the English captaincy (rated above the knighthood in certain quarters) and he gives it up for petty reasons as conviction and not seeing eye-to-eye with the coach. So what if he still scores a century at the next opportunity? Hardly proves he is a team man, just plain a selfish one.

Look at what KP has done. He actually wanted to go home for a couple of days between two test matches. And when denied, he turns petulant child and punishes the West Indies with yet another century. Come on now, even the benevolent Englishmen can’t ignore this taunt.

Look at what KP has done. He speaks his mind, even if it is not the same mind as the wise ones who run the game. At the end of a tiring tour, he actually complains of tiredness. Surely he should know better? Surely he realises that cricket is not all about batting, not even batting better than any bugger in sight? It’s an all-round game, especially off the field.

The Spin’s argument is so self-serving it’s pathetic.

Yes, Pietersen contradicts himself; yes, his stream-of-consciousness interview technique throws up headlines; yes, he puts his foot in it. But, boy, can he bat: England's only hope of surprising the resurgent Australians is if he is in the right frame of mind.

What if England, God forbid, win the Ashes? How will they justify it?

Bat tampering

Even as the media occupies itself with Mintgate, a gentle reader, Abdul Haque Mirza, makes an incisive comment on Sambit Bal’s piece on Cricinfo: License to fudge.

What is this all fuss about ball tampering? Has anybody ever taken notice of “bat tampering”. Applying oil to the blade of a bat is the oldest form of bat tampering. Then use of a dozen of grips (remember Clive Lloyd), long handles, thick blades, curvatures, making holes for free flow (remember Gavasker) – is it not bat tampering? Surely, the answer is going to be – no, no it is a ‘right’ of the batsman to use the most ‘convenient’ bat. If that is the argument, then why the same length and breadth of the bat is allowed for a 5 feet player as it is for a 7 feet player. Of course reducing of a few inches in length in former case and an increase of a few inches in later will make the bat much more ‘convenient’ for the user. If that is not allowed then the practices I have mentioned should come under ‘bat tampering’. There is no surprise that no one has ever given a thought to this because batsmen are always the ‘privileged’ class and poor bowlers are always at the receiving end.

Good shot, sir.

The outcast league

A Cricinfo piece titled ‘BCCI bars its players from counties with ICL staff’ reveals that the BCCI has decided that Indian cricketers cannot sign up for English counties that have ICL players in their midst. The honourable secretary of the BCCI Mr. Niranjan Shah said, ‘We don’t want our players in teams that have other players playing in unauthorised tournaments.’ Considering 15 out of the 18 English counties have ICL players in their midst, this sage decision of the BCCI all but rules out Indians from playing in the English county.

So the ICL has officially been declared an outcast, so if they go one way, the rest of Indian cricket cannot take that route. So you play for the ICL, then travel to England and play for Notts, then VVS Laxman can’t sign up for Notts. You go to Aberdeen for a vacation, and Rahul Dravid can’t vacation in Scotland for the rest of his life. You book in to a British Airways flight to go to England to watch the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, and you’ve denied Sachin Tendulkar the opportunity to meet Lewis Hamilton.

However, there is some silver lining faintly visible in the grim horizon. The BCCI does not have a problem if ‘non-ICL’ players from English county teams take part in the IPL. Someone please explain that to me.

I wonder whether it is possible to ban the BCCI and the IPL.

Corporate governance in cricket

The dust, it appears, will not settle on l’affaire SCG, not for the next few weeks at least, unless a decision is made on what Harbhajan Singh actually said, and what it means in different languages, societies and cultures, and to different arbiters, media personnel, bloggers and sundry other parties.

In the meantime, cricket continues in other parts of the world. After the aberration of the first test loss, South Africa pummelled West Indies in the next two to take the series. West Indian supporters would argue that a 2–1 score line is an upset result, and I for one would tend to accept that, especially considering my pre-series post.

A noticeable moment came up on the third (and what proved to be the final) day of the third test. After making a fluid if slightly chancy century, Marlon Samuels (who finally looks like shaking off the tag of a “nearly man”) was bowled by Dale Steyn. The delivery was an absolute beauty, pitching on off stump and straightening to beat the bat of a settled batsman. The stumps were rattled and the bowler, cock-a-hoop. But what followed is what I am referring to. Samuels, after the initial disappointment, actually looked towards the bowler and acknowledged the quality of the delivery with a nod of the head and a lift of the thumb.

Is this what critics of Australia and the SCG incidents talk of when they refer to “the spirit of the game”? Is this what they expect to see more of in the game? Is it a realistic expectation?

Would Samuels have done what he did if it was the last day of the test and the West Indies had a realistic chance of saving the game? Would Samuels have done it if two of his colleagues had perished earlier to debatable umpiring decisions? Would Samuels have done that if the South Africans had sledged his team mates through the game, and made a few visibly insane appeals?

I think the “spirit of the game” argument is an argument of the past. A past when cricket was a game, when winning was just one of the four possible results, when winning just led to honour and perhaps a ticker tape welcome back home. The present of cricket, and what seems to be its future, is far more straightforward: cricket is as much a business as any other. And success, defined as winning the game, comes above all else. In the process, if some teams approach the game like Enron approached business, so be it. It was for the arbiters to determine whether what Enron did constituted fair practice and act accordingly. And they did, and how.

Is Australia the Enron of cricket? Do the governing bodies have a sufficiently strong and comprehensive “corporate governance” code for cricket that can be enforced consistently and aggressively? Are the punishments for infringements as strict as they are in the corporate world? In the face of such unsolved questions, Indians can whine, the Aussies can preen and the rest of the world can tear its hair in frustration; the game will continue on its merry circus.

The sad truth is that Sydney now, the Oval in 2006 and sundry other matches before these have raised such seemingly unsolvable issues time and time again. Unfortunately, the administrators have been happy just treating the symptoms of the disease and pretending as if all is well. Some day, some one will have to go deep down and cure the disease at its underlying level. Until such time, we can only wait in trepidation for the next Sydney.