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Looking Beyond
Posted by the lazy knight
on
9:11 PM
I sometimes wish sport could be explained through theory. Its assumptions listed and consequences predicted. Its processes and flows explained much like a calculus problem with a chalk on a blackboard. But unfortunately, sport does not lend itself to such easy analysis and ‘ceteris paribus’, two words through which economists earn their fame, bread and butter don’t often find mention in a sportsman’s dictionary. Other things do not remain constant in the field of play. The action there is governed more by instinct, the result very often dependent on the call made at the spur of a moment. Too many variables combine to make the applicability of any mathematical model a bit of nightmare. From the vagaries of a cricket pitch to the home and away games in soccer (one would wonder why it would make such a difference, since unlike cricket the playing surface does not change in nature in any way) to the impact of that one critical and match turning line call in tennis and that heartbreaking engine failure in F1 – nothing can be encapsulated by the tightness of any model. In short like life, sport lends itself perfectly to unpredictability.
Disappointingly yet unpredictably India are out cricket’s biggest tournament. And predictably the reactions have been one of outrage. Adjectives have been ascribed to the performance, posters and effigies been burnt and funerals conducted. The competence of those representing the country has been questioned and in what is surely the biggest slur for any sportsman, their commitment to the game doubted. Now if you were a fan of the game and not of victory you would understand what I was talking about in the introductory paragraph. In sport like in life, at times you are bound to lose. And if you are not good enough even bound to lose badly as India did last night. So what are we mourning about? Mourning…it’s a strange word isn’t it? Who died if I may ask? When asked after his team’s defeat to India in that epic series in 2001 whether there was an atmosphere of mourning in the dressing room, the ever practical Steven Waugh replied coolly, “Mourning? It’s just a game mate. No one died out there.” So I ask again, whose last rites am I supposed to attend and whose departure to mourn? The death of over baked and unreasonable expectations? The loss of advertising revenues running into multiple zeroes or of those monies spent on armchair experts mulling over the team’s prospects in television studios?
If your life revolves in the matrix of India and one day cricket, then I guess you are free to go ahead and mourn. But if you follow the game because of your love for it, then I would suggest swallow your pride, accept the defeat gracefully and move on. There is a World Cup going on (and as I write in a possible precursor to the final Australia are matching wits with South Africa) and there are talented sportsmen out on the field plying their wares.
I often believe cricket enjoys that same degree of unreasonable passion in India as soccer does in England. And this I say unflinchingly despite being a die hard fan of both games. The English haven’t come any where close to being the world champions in soccer for more than 40 years and yet before every World Cup the tabloids and the mainstream media would make you believe that title is theirs by right. And with defeat come recrimination and the predictable cycle of coaches and players being sacked. And this concept of passion without knowledge, of love of victory more than the love of the game is something we repeat with alacrity. You have poems sung, albums cut, brands being sold, yagnas performed – all to bring the cup home. And then with defeat you have bonfires and demands for sacking everyone right up to the baggage boy of the team. So why do we treat our sportsmen so shabbily? Why do we subject them to the kind of treatment that we often reserve for our worst politicians? And yet when was the last time you saw a politician’s effigy being burnt? Even Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, the current day prevailing villain has been exempted from that unique humiliation. So what crime are the cricketers guilty of? Killing our dreams? Tarnishing our reputations? Or simply depriving us of an opportunity to rise above our complex of underachievement in life?
But somehow like in life so in sport a reality check is not such a bad thing after all. I hope this reality check wakes India up to some of the worrying questions opened up by their defeat. Questions such as why there appears lethargy among those moving in the field, why running the extra run seems so difficult and why the extra run is given away in the field? No matter how talented you may be, sport at the end of the day is about simplicity. And the more you are good at doing the simple things efficiently, the more successful you shall be. I hope it also brings to light the longer term problems Indian cricket faces – that of the drying supply of quality spinners, of younger batsmen not stepping up and succeeding at the international level, of the puzzling and worrisome decline of Irfan Pathan and most importantly of all where the leader of the next generation of Indian cricketers would come from?
These are tough questions but certainly not equal in magnitude to that calculus problem sketched on the blackboard, and unlike theory sport often throws up its own answers. Someone’s problem is someone’s opportunity. As a good friend of mine bemoaned this morning, champions rise to the occasion. And as I replied to him, what we need right now are not funerals or processions but a few good men who possess that one irritating quality the best student in your class in school displayed so passionately – the ability to raise one’s hand whenever a question was thrown in the air.
Disappointingly yet unpredictably India are out cricket’s biggest tournament. And predictably the reactions have been one of outrage. Adjectives have been ascribed to the performance, posters and effigies been burnt and funerals conducted. The competence of those representing the country has been questioned and in what is surely the biggest slur for any sportsman, their commitment to the game doubted. Now if you were a fan of the game and not of victory you would understand what I was talking about in the introductory paragraph. In sport like in life, at times you are bound to lose. And if you are not good enough even bound to lose badly as India did last night. So what are we mourning about? Mourning…it’s a strange word isn’t it? Who died if I may ask? When asked after his team’s defeat to India in that epic series in 2001 whether there was an atmosphere of mourning in the dressing room, the ever practical Steven Waugh replied coolly, “Mourning? It’s just a game mate. No one died out there.” So I ask again, whose last rites am I supposed to attend and whose departure to mourn? The death of over baked and unreasonable expectations? The loss of advertising revenues running into multiple zeroes or of those monies spent on armchair experts mulling over the team’s prospects in television studios?
If your life revolves in the matrix of India and one day cricket, then I guess you are free to go ahead and mourn. But if you follow the game because of your love for it, then I would suggest swallow your pride, accept the defeat gracefully and move on. There is a World Cup going on (and as I write in a possible precursor to the final Australia are matching wits with South Africa) and there are talented sportsmen out on the field plying their wares.
I often believe cricket enjoys that same degree of unreasonable passion in India as soccer does in England. And this I say unflinchingly despite being a die hard fan of both games. The English haven’t come any where close to being the world champions in soccer for more than 40 years and yet before every World Cup the tabloids and the mainstream media would make you believe that title is theirs by right. And with defeat come recrimination and the predictable cycle of coaches and players being sacked. And this concept of passion without knowledge, of love of victory more than the love of the game is something we repeat with alacrity. You have poems sung, albums cut, brands being sold, yagnas performed – all to bring the cup home. And then with defeat you have bonfires and demands for sacking everyone right up to the baggage boy of the team. So why do we treat our sportsmen so shabbily? Why do we subject them to the kind of treatment that we often reserve for our worst politicians? And yet when was the last time you saw a politician’s effigy being burnt? Even Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, the current day prevailing villain has been exempted from that unique humiliation. So what crime are the cricketers guilty of? Killing our dreams? Tarnishing our reputations? Or simply depriving us of an opportunity to rise above our complex of underachievement in life?
But somehow like in life so in sport a reality check is not such a bad thing after all. I hope this reality check wakes India up to some of the worrying questions opened up by their defeat. Questions such as why there appears lethargy among those moving in the field, why running the extra run seems so difficult and why the extra run is given away in the field? No matter how talented you may be, sport at the end of the day is about simplicity. And the more you are good at doing the simple things efficiently, the more successful you shall be. I hope it also brings to light the longer term problems Indian cricket faces – that of the drying supply of quality spinners, of younger batsmen not stepping up and succeeding at the international level, of the puzzling and worrisome decline of Irfan Pathan and most importantly of all where the leader of the next generation of Indian cricketers would come from?
These are tough questions but certainly not equal in magnitude to that calculus problem sketched on the blackboard, and unlike theory sport often throws up its own answers. Someone’s problem is someone’s opportunity. As a good friend of mine bemoaned this morning, champions rise to the occasion. And as I replied to him, what we need right now are not funerals or processions but a few good men who possess that one irritating quality the best student in your class in school displayed so passionately – the ability to raise one’s hand whenever a question was thrown in the air.
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