Decolonise the cricket set-up

Funny that a conversation with Sunil Gavaskar should lead to the following train of thought. That decolonisation is an incomplete process is not something only the Spaniards are discovering at the Rock of Gibraltar.

Visit French Polynesia, Marquesas, which the great Gaugin made his abode, and you have all around you millions of square miles of liquid territory the French govern. Sometimes the administrators are from Pondicherry. Not far from the area is the Island of Pitcairn, where 58 families claiming descent from Captain Fletcher of the Mutiny on the Bounty fame, are still carefully looked after by Her Majesty’s government. Mauritius has ceased to be vocal about Diego Garcia which they leased to Britain who leased it to the US.

So, this territorial decolonisation process has a complex long winded trajectory.

In India we have been rather elegant about decolonisation. The last Viceroy of British India was the first Governor General of Independent India. The Statesman, a finer school for journalism did not exist across the globe, had Englishmen as editors and senior assistant editor until the 80s. Deepwali was celebrated as Guy Fawkes day until 1984.

Among the many gifts colonialism left behind is, without doubt, cricket. Even in the cricket field, the Indo-Anglian equation has been an evolutionary process. The great Ranjit Sinhji, Jam sahib of Nawanagar, and his nephew Duleep Sinhji graced the English cricket scene for years. Asked if Duleep might ever play for India, Ranji is reported to have responded without batting an eyelid: “Duleep and I are English cricketers”. That did not prevent us from naming our two major cricket championships, Ranji Trophy and Duleep Trophy, after the two great cricketers.

Former Indian Captain Tiger Pataudi’s father, the late Nawab of Pataudi protested, while playing for England, against Jardines bodyline tactics to pulverise Bradman.

Mushtaq Ali, who opened the innings with Vijay Merchant on many glorious occasions, has nursed a possibly unfounded grievance against Bradman. Even though Bradman’s ship was docked in Bombay for days, the legendary Aussie refused to leave his cabin (or the ship) to visit Bombay. Mushtaq Ali puts it down to racism. Cricket, too evolved, subjected to inexorable pressures from egalitarianism. Gentlemen vs Players matches gave way to players vs players.

To face the battery of Hall and Gilclrist, Cowdrey and Co wore arm and chest guards. Then the helmet made an appearance and some players like Mike Brearley and Sunil Gavaskar disguised their specially made skull caps under the routine floppy hats, just to be able to cope with the transition elegantly, without being noticed.

Electronic media entered to further amplify cricket’s burgeoning popularity. One day cricket was born. The genius of Sumedh Shah’s Professional Management Group mobilised active cricketeers into the business of column writing.

Sunil Gavaskar, therefore, is among the earliest to have taken to regular column writing in the 80s for the PMG. The extended transition from “Gentlemen” to “Players” also entailed that the education level of players on the field declined. Some, therefore, could write while others could not. But Gavaskar remained a leading columnist from the ranks of the players. This sometimes incurs the wrath of regular cricket scribes. Take, for instance, the Times of London’s, Chief cricket correspondent, Christopher Martin-Jenkin’s rather pointless jibe at Gavaskar: “He does write a rather shamless column and he probably does not expect serious readers to take it other than with a pinch of salt”.

The context is Gavaskar’s rather innocuous comments about the English cricket team which toured India recently. He called them “boring” in one column and great “whingers” in another.

Heavens broke loose. The entire English cricket establishment was at his throat. How could he? After all, he is the chairman of one of the International Cricket Council’s Technical committees. Attacks on Gavaskar imply that being on the ICC’s committee, he should have refrained from being “biased”.

Biased? Take this random passage from a Gavaskar column: “England gained more from the series. That they not only drew the two tests but also looked in control for the better part shows the work done on the mental side by Nasser Hussain”. One can cite many more such passages.

England, the “sceptered isle” has always had this great ability to rally around its own. Alas sometimes this tendency declines into jingoism as in this instance, indicating the distance from the days of the gentleman cricketers and cricketing fraternity.

It also betrays the reluctance of the Metropolitan Centres of Control to permit greater democratisation of the global cricketing establishment. To that extent it reflects the slow process of decolonisation even in this sphere.

That not a single Indian scribe or member of the cricketing establishment rose to defend one of the icons of Indian (and world) cricket says something of us as a nation.

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