THE COARSENING OF CRICKET

modern cricket: money, violent bowling, the one-day game and the South African factor

LIKE THE Palace of Westminster, the Dictionary of National Biography, the postal service and our urban sewage sys- tem, the game of first-class cricket is part of that huge legacy from the Victorian era which still plays such a large part in shaping our contemporary world that we take it for granted. Like them it has gradually adapted and adjusted to the new pressures of the 20th century in ways which not everyone would see as wholly an improve- ment. And certainly like the state of the sewers, that of cricket seems to be giving cause at the present time for some fairly deep concern. LIKE THE Palace of Westminster, the Dictionary of National Biography, the postal service and our urban sewage sys- tem, the game of first-class cricket is part of that huge legacy from the Victorian era which still plays such a large part in shaping our contemporary world that we take it for granted. Like them it has gradually adapted and adjusted to the new pressures of the 20th century in ways which not everyone would see as wholly an improve- ment. And certainly like the state of the sewers, that of cricket seems to be giving cause at the present time for some fairly deep concern.

In fact the events of recent months, coinciding with the start of a new domestic season, provide a good opportunity for taking a general look at the current turbu- lent state of world cricket — not least because of the way they have marked the culmination of the most dramatic shift in the balance of power in the hundred years or so of the game's international history.

Through its first 70 years, up to the Period immediately following the second World war, international cricket was almost Completely dominated by two countries, England and Australia. Between the wars, Other outposts of the British Empire pro- duced teams which had their moments. The West Indian fast bowlers of 1933 and George Headley's two centuries in a Test match at Lord's in 1939 gave a foretaste of What was to come. But it was not until the Shock of the West Indians' 3-1 victory in England in 1950 that one of the lesser cricketing powers defeated one of the 'Big Two' at full strength in a series. Through the 1950s and 1960s, it became Clear that the West Indies had arrived as at least an equal of England and Australia, as they produced new generations of superb Cricketers to replace `the three W's' and Ramadhin and Valentine. The great crick- eting records began to fall to `outsiders': Gary Sobers's 365 took Hutton's record for the highest individual Test innings, a Pakis-

tani, Hanif Mohammed, took Bradman's

record for the largest score in first-class Cricket. And around 1970 it was generally agreed that South Africa, in the heyday of Pollock, Bland, Richards and Procter, could probably have beaten any country in the world, had they been allowed to play.

But in the 1970s the new `Big Three' continued to battle it out for dominance, with the cricketing countries now divided into two classes. Then suddenly, in the past few years, there has been a new re- alignment. India and Pakistan have main- tained their progress to the point where each has convincingly beaten both England and Australia in a Test series. England has even lost to a newly vigorous New Zea- land. In 1983 India surprised everyone by winning a seemingly freak victory in a one-day competition against all comers — but now, in Australia last month, we have seen the extraordinary spectacle of India beating Pakistan in the final of a one-day 'World Championship'. And above all we have seen the West Indies so confirming their dominance in general Test cricket that in 1984 they beat England five times in succession and Australia six times, in a run of superiority which has no parallel in the history of the game.

The real lesson of the events of the past year is not just that other countries have become so good, but that relatively the original `Big Two', England and Australia, have fallen so far down the ladder. For the first time in the history of the game, if there were a World XI picked to play Mars, it is highly dubious whether any Englishman or Australian would deserve a place. In fact there is a good argument that the best current World XI might all be West Indians, since it seems generally accepted that Clive Lloyd's side of last year, so strong in all departments, ranks among the two or three greatest teams ever to play.

All of which might make it seem that any gloom about the present state of world cricket should be confined to Englishmen and Australians, as they contemplate the falling-off in the quality of their two sides

since their last historic series in England — Botham's annus mirabilis — in 1981. Cer-

tainly, as they prepare for their six Test matches this summer, they scarcely seem to represent anything more than two of the world's lesser cricketing powers fighting for some kind of wooden spoon — with England still groggy from three years of more or less continuous failure, and Au- stralia planning to send their most inex- perienced Test side for over 100 years (the captain Allan Border, Jeff Thomson, Graeme Wood and Kepler Wessels are about the only four most people will have heard of).

Nevertheless, over and above our little local difficulties, there is a sense of some much deeper malaise infecting the present state of cricket as a whole. Wherever one hears or reads of the game being discussed, most notably perhaps by that most elo- quent of the Cassandras among the com- mentators, John Woodcock, in his dual capacity as cricket correspondent of the

Times and as editor of Wisden, certain points of concern come up again and again — and they all in some way seem to threaten the mysterious essence of what over the past 100 years has made cricket such a nonpareil among games.

There seem to be four particular sha- dows over the health and future of the game — which one could dramatise as 'the four horsemen of cricket's apocalypse' — although in the end they all seem to resolve into different aspects of the same problem.

The first worry is the shadow cast over the rest of the game by the predominance of fast, often violent bowling. It is certainly a fact that the dominant force in world cricket today is not just the extraordinary quality of the West Indian batsmen, Richards, Greenidge, Haynes, Gomes and the rest, but their wealth of really fast bowlers, Garner, Marshall, Holding and a host more. It seems to be a fact that the combination of West Indian physique and psychology produces fast bowlers in a way that has never been equalled in any other country, and although no one can doubt their talent and cricketing skill, the worry is that such a relentless concentration of its most explosive and aggressive element has an unbalancing effect on the overall equa- tion of factors which makes cricket such a uniquely complex and richly textured game. The one change which even the most indifferent non-cricket lover has noticed in the game over recent years has been the fact that so many batsmen now wear armour, and the unleashing of this new power in cricket has seemed to intro- duce a new gladiatorial hostility which few can find wholly comfortable to contem- plate. In last summer's series alone, the torrent of intentional bouncers, hardly questioned by the umpires, seriously in-

jured two England batsmen and hurt many more. In his Editor's Notes in the new Wisden (John Wisden, £11.95 hardback, £9.95 limp), John Woodcock particularly singles out for regret the episode at Lord's when Marshall cruelly assaulted the tail- ender Pocock, without a word of remon- strance from umpire David Constant.

The second worry is the shadow being cast by the increasingly disproportionate number of one-day internationals, which reached its nadir recently in the absurd, floodlit 'pyjama game' series in Australia. Here again, the chief worry is the coarsen- ing effect this has on players and on the game in general, as matches are staged with a multiplicity of gimmickry, and with a premium on slogging, unsubtle bowling and anything else which will attract the largest possible television audience. As Allan Border was quoted as saying after the recent Australian season, when Kerry Packer's Channel 9 network had televised 62 days of cricket, mostly one-day: 'Every- thing is suffering — Tests, the Sheffield Shield. The people, even the players, are beginning to say "Oh God, not another one-day match".' In general, it seems agreed that the one-day game has on balance been a blessing to cricket since it was introduced 20 years ago: it has certain- ly increased public interest, gate receipts and the standard of fielding. But it has only been in the past year or two, particularly it must be said in Australia, and thanks to the almost wholly malign influence of Mr Packer, that it has seemed that the worst fears of 20 years ago were at last coming true, and that one-day gimmick cricket was becoming a cuckoo threatening to push the more serious game out of the nest.

Net practice

The third worry, closely connected to this, has been the general way in which cricket has become overheated by all the pressures associated with the injection of new types of money, publicity and spon- sorship into the game. There is nothing new about cricket commanding national attention, and players like Hobbs, Brad- man or Compton becoming national celeb- rities. But in recent years, much more than before, cricket has become not just a game, producing giants who were distant heroic figures for what they did on the field, but a form of show business, with 'stars' whose whole lives become domin- ated by media attention, public appear- ances and making money on a scale which players even 20 years ago would have found incredible.

With the constant battling for prizes, free cars, franchises, this has introduced a new hardness and egotism into the profes- sional game, and a much more arrogant, casual attitude among certain star players, which not only makes them less attractive as people but is generally bad for morale — as was indicated in the recent stern critic- ism of many of the attitudes of today's England players by Bob Taylor in his splendidly titled autobiography Standing Up, Standing Back (Willow Books, £8.95), particularly directed at Ian Botham and the laid-back' David Gower for their slap- happy approach to net practice and to the

game in general, which rubs off on younger players.

The fourth continuing problem sapping the health of the game — again related to the pressures of 'devil's gold', and as we have again seen dramatically demonstrated in recent days — has been what one may call 'the South African factor'. Ever since 1970, the expulsion of South Africa from the world cricket community has intro- duced a distortion into the overall balance of the game, with South Africans like Allan Lamb and Kepler Wessels forced to qualify for other countries, and with many leading English, West Indian and Austra- lian players being banned from their own sides because they have been tempted to play in South Africa. These by-products of the wonderful self-righteous charade over South African sporting links may not ex- actly threaten the future of cricket as a whole, but by injecting a further heady mix of hypocrisy, greed and general antagon- ism into the game, they have certainly played their part in increasing the tensions and pressures which give cricket its present strained, overheated atmosphere.

I said earlier that all these four factors resolve down into aspects of the same problem — which is that they have all helped to harden and to coarsen the texture of cricket, and the personalities of some of those who play it. One of cricket's great glories has been its infinite subtlety and variety. In this respect no other game has ever approached it. It takes longer to play than any other, with all the scope that gives for plot and drama in the unfolding of a match. None can compete with cricket in the range of individual skills it requires, both physical and mental: in its degree of differentiation. In no other major sport (apart from its pale shadow, baseball) are both sides doing something completely different at the same time — quite apart from all the variety of skills required by the different types of batsmen, bowlers and fielders needed to make up a fully balanced side, capable of coping with all the range of pitches, weather conditions and states of the ball. Anything which diminishes that variety and differentiation is a derogation from the full artistry, grace and joy of the game, and some of the present threats to the overall health of cricket do that.

Stresses of stardom

Another great glory of cricket has been what one might call, in the most general sense and without being too sentimental, its moral aspect. At its best it is a game which, more than most, calls for admir- able, selfless qualities in those who play it well and deserve admiration — which is why Boycott always attracted suspicion. In this respect the present pressures and temptations on the young men in their twenties and thirties who play cricket today, the stresses of stardom, money, publicity, are not calculated to uphold the best traditions of the game or to produce the most congenial atmosphere in the pavilion, or for that matter to produce the best cricket.

But in general it would be foolish to gripe too much at the state of a game which still contains, even without the admirable Clive Lloyd, one of the most talented sides ever to take a cricket field, 20 or 30 of the best individual cricketers in the game's history and dozens of talented, likeable, intelligent players whose only complaint is that they have to play and travel too much. To borrow an old title of Jack Fingleton's, we are not so much faced in 1985 with a 'Cricket Crisis' — merely a period when the game is going through a particularly testing phase, for reasons which spring more from the pressures imposed on it by our often ridiculous consumer-capitalist society than from the game itself. Who knows, we may even have an exciting Test series this summer and see the renaissance of England and Australia? As we learned all over again in 1981, when after two Tests under Botham's dismal captaincy England seemed to be sliding to defeat in a lacklus- tre series, in cricket anything can happen.