The Hindu : Sport : A little soul searching may not hurt

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A little soul searching may not hurt

Success should not be allowed to sweep inconvenient issues under the carpet, writes Nirmal Shekar

Often, it is in the warm afterglow of success, rather than in the morale-shattering gloom of failure, that soul searching becomes easier. Such a climate allows for introspection without fear.

But principled self-scrutiny is something that Indian cricket has only rarely been able to take credit for. And this might be as good a time as any to take a hard look at ourselves as a cricket-loving nation.

The events of Sydney and Perth held a mirror to the best and worst of Australian sport as well as its society and culture.

Sporting Australia courageously stripped itself bare, warts and all. Whether this cathartic act unnerved Ricky Ponting’s men and, in turn, stripped the national cricket team of its aura of invincibility is debatable. This writer would like to believe that Anil Kumble and his boys deserved all the credit for halting the juggernaut.

On the other hand, what is — or should be — significant is, for reasons that may not exactly be similar, Sydney and Perth offered India the chance to catch a glimpse of its real cricketing face and pass judgement.

Missing an opportunity

But, amidst all the fevered rants in a poisonous climate of hyper-nationalism, and ever ready to feel endlessly sorry for ourselves as self-perceived victims, we might have let go of a rare opportunity.

As they did in the Indian doctor Mohammad Haneef’s case last year, the vibrant Australian media and the public — at least the vast majority, going by polls conducted by newspapers — stood up for what was right post-Sydney.

Can the same be said in the case of India, the so-called aggrieved party? To answer this question the best we can, we must first try and block out the effects of our hard-wiring and cast aside the Us versus Them mindset, a relic of our tribal past.

Was the Board of Control for Cricket in India right to have briefly ‘suspended’ the tour and to have gone after Steve Bucknor’s head — because the boys were feeling blue after a few bad decisions and Harbhajan Singh felt victimised — after the Sydney Test?

Is it morally right for the BCCI to use its financial muscle in the world game to have its way? Here, the International Cricket Council is equally culpable. Would the ICC have removed Bucknor from his postings if the complaint had come from Zimbabwe or Bangladesh?

Surely, this is not to say that Bucknor, aged 61, is still competent enough to officiate at the international level. But that is not the point here.

If you are questioning the competence of the ICC’s Elite Panel, that is all very well. But to demand the dismissal of an official following a few mistakes is not ethical and it can lead to potentially dangerous situations.

In Perth, Australia was at the wrong end of two umpiring decisions on the crucial fourth day when it was chasing 413. Michael Hussey, playing as if his life depended on that one innings, and Andrew Symonds, in the form of his life, both had reasons to believe they were not fairly dismissed.

Part of the game

While there has been no reaction from the Australian dressing room to those umpiring errors, the media itself dismissed it as something that was part of the game. The rub of the green seldom favours the same side twice in a row in sport.

As someone who watched one half of this Test series on Indian television and the Perth match from Melbourne, this writer would like to commend Channel 9 for its wonderfully responsible coverage, for avoiding the breathless, over-the-top stuff that is a staple of Indian television.

There was just a single replay of the Hussey and Symonds dismissals and from the commentary box nothing that was remotely as hysterical as the stuff you heard in India on the last day of the Sydney Test.

On the other hand, how many replays did we get to see in India of Bucknor turning down Ishant Sharma’s appeal for a caught behind decision against Symonds?

For days together, every time you switched on the TV, it reappeared as if it was most significant event in the universe at that time.

At a time of great euphoria in India following the epochal victory in the Perth Test, it may seem churlish to advocate soul-searching. But success should not be allowed to sweep inconvenient issues under the carpet.

Mature introspection

A mature sporting culture is never afraid to vigorously examine itself in front of the moral mirror. There is no shame in admitting to mistakes, just as there is none in a defeat arrived at after a hundred per cent effort.

But a frenzied, hyper-emotional bid to seize the moral high ground without a nuanced attempt to think through issues and study the balance sheet of rights and wrongs will hardly help embellish India’s rich cricketing culture.

Only the strong can admit to mistakes with their heads held high; the weak nervously shuffle away with shifty glances.

In sport, winning is important, very important; but only when we can view victory and defeat in their right context. If we want our sporting culture to reach its apotheosis, we must make sure that we get our perspective right.

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