Loutish behaviour calls for harsher punishment
Players behaving like louts on the field of play is, I am afraid, nothing new
Partab Ramchand
01-Mar-2001
Players behaving like louts on the field of play is, I am afraid,
nothing new. But viewed alongside any of the many unfortunate
incidents that have blotted the once noble image of cricket -
particularly in the last 25 years - Michael Slater's absolutely
scandalous outburst at the Wankhede stadium on Thursday constituted
a new low in the history of growing misbehaviour in the game.
Questioning an umpire's decision is bad enough. But now unfortunately
the stage has arrived when a player is at loggerheads with a decision
taken by the third umpire, who has the benefit of innumerable slow
motion replays from various angles. Is he a better judge or the player
who thinks he has completed a `catch' on the spur of the moment? What
next, one wonders.
Over the past two decades we have had many unhappy episodes that have
sullied the image of the game. Can anyone ever forget the sight of
Michael Holding kicking the stumps when an appeal was turned down by
the umpire? In the same series, Colin Croft barged into umpire Goodall
after he had negatived an appeal. A year later came Sunil Gavaskar's
infamous walk out incident at Melbourne after an altercation with
Dennis Lillee. The fiery Australian fast bowler, already infamous for
the aluminum bat incident in 1979, was embroiled in another unsavoury
controversy involving Javed Miandad two years later. The sight of
umpire Tony Crafter separating the two `warriors' - the one with
clenched fists and the other aiming to club Lillee with his bat - was
the kind of photograph that brought tears to the eyes of the genuine
cricket fan, who all along thought that the adage `it's not cricket'
stood for anything unfair and unsporting.
As if all this was not enough, worse was to follow over the next
decade. The questioning of umpires' decision became more open, the
star players behaved like they were prima donnas and the clashes
between the batsmen and the fielders became more and more
disreputable. And in 1987-88 the image of the game touched a new low,
first with the incident involving Chris Broad who refused to leave the
crease after being given out caught behind by the umpire. Then of
course in the next Test followed the infamous row between Mike Gatting
and Shakoor Rana. Graham Morris' famous photograph of Rana and Gatting
squaring up to each other was somehow symbolic of the growing malaise
that had engulfed the game. By the 90s the phrase `cricket is a
gentleman's game' evoked only derisive laughter. That phrase belonged
to an earlier era when fieldsmen applauded a batsman who reached his
century, when a batsman said `well bowled' to a bowler who had
dismissed him and when fast bowlers refrained from bowling bouncers at
tailenders.
All these noble qualities associated with the game had more or less
disappeared by the time of Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket. But
there is little doubt that the behaviour of the players became more
boorish as a result of their direct involvement in WSC. Today, much
that is attractive or innovative about the game - night cricket,
coloured clothing, stump vision camera, white balls, black sight
screen et al - can be traced to WSC. Unfortunately bad behaviour can
also be traced to this two year turbulent period. With the tantrums
becoming increasingly unendurable and with the image of the game
suffering as a result, the International Cricket Council had to take
urgent steps to curb the cancerous growth and so in the early 90s,
innovations like the TV umpire (to help solve dissatisfaction with
umpiring decisions), neutral officials (to quell charges of biased
umpiring) and the match referee (to take action against erring
players) were introduced.
It was reasonably hoped that these steps would act as a deterrent to
the players. But based on the experiences of the last decade, it can
safely be stated that these innovations have not had the desired
effect. The failure of neutral officials is best illustrated by South
African Cricket Board chief Ali Bacher's allegation against Pakistan
umpire Javed Akhtar for giving eight lbw decisions in the decisive
Test against England in 1998. Also, it must not be forgotten that only
one of the two officials is from a neutral country and so the charge
of bias can still be raised. As regards decisions taken by match
referees, it must be said that these sometimes have raised more than
the proverbial eyebrow. The officials have not been consistent despite
the benefit of certain yardsticks. Frankly, too much is left to their
interpretations, leading to charges of incompetency and bias. For
example, Cammie Smith's decision just to warn Slater for his tantrums
when a sterner penalty would have been in order was almost as shocking
as the incident itself. One thought at least the third umpire's
decisions would be above board - until Slater showed with his
absolutely unacceptable behaviour on Thursday that even this could be
questioned.
The point to note here is that some of the punishments meted out to
the erring players is just not enough. A suspended sentence of two
matches, a one match suspension, a monetary fine - all this obviously
has no effect on the stars who having served out the punishment or
paid the money promptly return to their ill mannered ways. Perhaps the
time has come for harsher punishment to be meted out to these prima
donnas. They must learn that the game is bigger than the individual.
Much has been said about the damage to the game as a fallout of the
match fixing scandal. One wonders how much the game has already
suffered before April 7, 2000 by the loutish exhibition of players
parading themselves as successors to gentlemen cricketers like Jack
Hobbs, Frank Worrell and Gundappa Viswanath.