Cricket is a sport which is very religiously followed in India. Though on the world level, the sport is not that popular and is played by a very few countries yet the competitive spirit that is involved in the game is intense. Earlier, cricket was a rich man’s game and only the gentlemen who could afford the sport would indulge in playing it. The realms of this monotony were broken overtime as the players from the other strata of the society gradually took cricket beyond the epithet of ‘A gentleman’s game’.
The recent incidents that have surfaced show a very different side of the cricketers which is not something we are unfamiliar with, but as many as three incidents on the world stage in less than a week’s time is alarming but there is always a much bigger story behind cricketers resorting to such measures which goes unnoticed.
The first incident involved the Indian fast bowler Ishant Sharma, who was caught mouthing tirades on the stump microphone. The recipient of those gruesome abuses from Ishant is a mystery where a part of the media claimed it was Zaheer Khan who was cursed while the other part claimed it was Brendon McCullum.
It was during the 2nd Test match between India and New Zealand – When Ishant bowled a delivery towards the leg stump, McCullum flicked the ball and took 2 runs, it was Zaheer Khan who very lazily got to the ball on the field. Ishant was caught using abusive language on the microphone while going back to his run-up. It is a possibility that he cursed Zaheer, who was slow to get to the ball and it is a possibility that he abused McCullum who was earlier dropped by him of his own bowling.
There is also a third side to it as well which no one mentioned, whenever we are frustrated by ourselves we tend to have an intra-personal talk. Ishant was wicket-less in the 2nd innings after taking 6 in the 1st, he himself was the reason behind McCullum being at the crease for so long and while pressing hard to take wickets he bowled a loose delivery on the pads which gave away easy runs. We cannot rule out the possibility that he was using those expletive words for himself to indict his poor delivery.
The second incident involved the Bangladeshi all-rounder Shakib-al-Hasan who was banned for 3 matches for using objectionable gestures on camera. The commentators during the recent Bangladesh-Sri Lanka ODI, were discussing Shakib’s bad form and the screen at the stadium showed Shakib getting out in the recent matches, the cameraman then pointed the camera towards the Bangladeshi dressing room and Shakib responded by holding his crotch. Again this is something which is unacceptable but Shakib has been out of form for a long time and scrutinizing someone’s bad form on big screens in front of his home crowd and then pointing the camera towards him would only infuriate the player.
The third incident involved the U19 Indian skipper Vijay Zol who was suspended for one match due to him being aggressive and using offensive language to an English player during the quarter-final match at the U-19 World Cup in the UAE. India was on the back foot and there is a possibility that the Indian skipper was provoked by the English batsman earlier but the ICC code of conduct takes into account only hardcore evidences.
There is a decorum that is to be maintained once a player enters the field and the level of competition involved in sports around the world invite aggression from them. All the sports around the globe have seen rivalries and the result of those rivalries have been this uncouth behavior on the field.
The difference is in dealing with the offences. Where games like Football and Hockey are usually lenient on small verbal fights that originate out of aggression, cricket is stricter on that front yet all of these sports take in notice only one side of the story.
One example is the famous incident involving Zidane and Materazzi during the FIFA world cup final of 2006, where Zidane’s head butt was reprimanded by showing him a red card while Materazzi’s instigation to Zidane’s actions were only scrutinized in the media and not officially. This is one of the loop-hole with the laws that these sports have regarding such incidents.
The archaic laws that only indicts a person caught by the camera is farcical, there is a much bigger picture that is off it. Take the Monkeygate incident between Harbhajan Singh and Andrew Symonds in 2008 where the provocation to Harbhajan Singh was pumped by Symonds into using the racial statement (If he used any) and only Singh was penalized for the offence.
Surely these incidents are unacceptable and the person indulging in such behavior should be punished but the problem is in the way sports authorities deal with these incidents. As there are two sides of a coin, there is always another side to the story and before taking harsh decisions on these uncouth gentlemen these authorities should take in notice that other side.
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