Cricket - Article By Rakesh Gupta

Cricket. Cricket! Cricket?

Sharad Pawar, Sri Lanka, India’s richest sporting body, Hansie Cronje, exhilarating ODIs against Pakistan, racism row, Muttaiah Muralitharan, telecast rights, betting meter, Allan Donald, offering prayers for a victory, players’ houses stoned, Geoffrey Boycott, Zimbabwe, animated on-field behavior of players’ success, Mohammad (Yousuf) Youhana, hockey forgotten, Lagaan, Kapil Dev, Sportsmanship, 20-20, Jagmohan Dalmiya ousted, 424 run chase, Harsha Bhogle, Don Bradman, Sunny days, Lords, MCC, Ashes, Chak De India, RSA, Anil Kumble circle, match-fixing, Indian Premier League, Drona award, 300+ runs by a batsmen, 10 wickets in a match, ‘Victorians’ calling it, “This is not cricket”, Clive Lloyd, public gathered at the windows of TV showrooms, Women’s national team (does India have one?), Indian Cricket League, Allan Donald, leisure sport, Ranji trophy, Arjuna award, Ferrari tax evasion, Bob Woolmer, keeper-batsman, Vijay Mallya, sponsorship, MAN of the match, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Tony Grieg++

This is my effort to present cricket in a cultural studies perspective, for all that we know about it. Mostly looking at the phenomenon called the cricket especially during and after the 1980s in India. I am neither a true cricket fan nor am I a specialist who followed cricket, analyzing and critically looking at this game called cricket. This is an attempt which started off as a curiosity to answer my questions on the peculiar nature of the game and its presence in the lives of the people politically and culturally sometimes ‘superseding’ the individual self or just associating it to replicate the inner self or neither of the cases. Also trying to look at if there is any relation at all with the ‘viewing of cricket culture’ to the collective sub-conscious and the evident conscious behavior of a person.

I cannot just take off from the 1980s although that’s what I am interested in. Before that its worth mentioned one incident/accidental turn which caused the ‘emergence’ of cricket in India. Also my memory and my opinions would be stronger for this period since it’s the experiential opinion. So, I would try and give some interesting (that I think) events in the course of History of this Game.

First cricket match was played in Britain in the early 1700s. Soon after that in a matter of few years cricket started to become popular among the elite who either played themselves or paid people to play for them. Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) was established in 1787 which sort of became the official body to set rules and regulations governing the game of cricket and did so for at least 150 years.

Cricket started gaining popularity throughout Britain and more and more of cricket had gotten familiar with everyone - the common men and the elite. This caused a worry among the Puritans who were airing opinions for the absence of people from Churches on Sundays due to people playing cricket and regarded this as a escaping from divinity for a senseless game.

But, the structure of cricket created by the MCC gave some openings to the colonizing mode of Britain then, which gave them ideas for deploying cricket as a way of disciplining people and encouraged the army to practice cricket. This was also promoted in the colonies as the Oriental approach of ‘civilizing’ the colonized because of the features the game possessed. Hence cricket was regarded as a ‘sport of leisure and a way of keeping oneself fit.’

There was another usage of cricket in the colonies which was as per the words of Fourth Lord Harris, Governor of Bombay (1890-1895) who led the foundation for the expansion of cricket in India said, “This works as a counter-attraction to paisa and politics”

There is one interesting way of putting across the thoughts of a fast bowler which might have had a direct influence from the World War. Harold Larwood (pre WW player) said something like he wanted to bowl short deliveries to batsmen to just intimidate them and put them on guard when they are facing him.
Whereas, Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson (post WW players) said something like they go onto the field intending to hurt the batsmen by aiming at his rib cage so that they (batsmen) are always aware of the bowler being faced by them.

By this account of cricket and its presence in India, let’s look at it as a culture of viewing by which people associate it to themselves. It is important to note that India had been good at hockey and we all know of the leading names of Dhyan Chand and the glory of the sport in the international arena with the number of Olympics gold India has won. This was largely spread in the 1950s and 1960s.
Then, there was an interesting turn in the 1980s which took place that brought cricket to the fore. Advent of TV sets in the 1980s and in the year 1983 Indian men’s cricket team won the cricket World Cup which saw the entire shift of hockey to cricket in terms of viewer base and the revenue generation.
Now getting to the difficult task of understanding the cricketing culture and the viewing culture in India with which people derive political spaces and cultural affiliations from it. Let me start with the metaphor that Ashis Nandy uses in his book, “Tao of Cricket” – “An Indian game discovered in Britain”.
This is very much true in the sense that cricket as some people points it to be foreign, but it has been so much internalized that it ceases to be foreign just like the chilies which came to India in the medieval times which has since then been so much a part of Indian cuisine.

Cricket in some ways is a ‘truer’ projection of cultures and of encounters of cultures than many other forms of human self-expression.

There is another noted author who puts it as, “In India people watch cricket for six months and talk about it for the other six” who also goes on to say that, “To enjoy cricket one must know something more than cricket.”

Looking at this study in 5 different heads:

1. Cricket vs. Chess

By looking at the course of the chess which has been explained one can easily understand why the winner emerged so. Although, success lies in the accuracy and steadfast thinking to be able to make ‘the right moves’.
By looking at the cricket score card, one can never understand what has happened and who the winner is for one who doesn’t know anything about cricket. It requires a lot of training to know that there are 300 balls to be faced and get the most runs to contain the opponent to get one run more to be able to win with each team consisting of 11 players.

This makes cricket a lot more complex and cricket excels in uncertainties and ambiguities. This could be regarded as why cricket has elevated to different levels with the self-expression of a sport in itself.

2. Myths – Good vs. Evil

This is one of the approaches which have been noted in Ashis Nandy’s book. He starts with an example of a Pakistani cricketer having received a standing ovation by 85,000 strong Indian crowd in Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
He looks at this as Indians being associated with the myths where characters like Karna and Drona exists and respected and also looked at as a necessity in the world we associate with. This is where cricket comes in and we are able to relate it to the cultural history of ours.

3. Collective Nation opposition

This is something Indians had to deal with throughout. There is virtually no social-security established by the government (just by looking at India as a political nation after the 1947) and we have been regarded as collective societies where families take care of each other.

Here it is interesting to bring in the Soccer clubs to understand cricket in India better. Soccer fans stick to their favorite clubs even tough a great star leaves to another club. It’s a big loss but people move on. With cricket in India it’s not the case. One can be a fan of Sachin Tendulkar as he will continue to be representing India for his entire career. This will enable one to idolize him. I am keeping aside the latest developments of ICL and IPL as it will definitely need a good long time to be able to replicate the soccer clubs model.

This idolizing can mean that one has been able to associate to the unleashing against the bowlers and get some good runs and regard it to his success. Since team’s success directly translates to everybody’s success.

So, we can see that an Indian youth is probably able to look at the self-expression of collective nation or also looking at the idolizing as a symbol of protest of collective nation to a preferred Individualistic lifestyle and emphasis laid on being individual and unique rather than following suite and the entire hassle of compromise for each other’s benefit to put it in a blunt way.

4. Structure of politics and cricket

There goes a great amount of similarity with the way the cricket boards work and politics.
BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India), is the apex governing body for cricket in India. The board was formed in 1929. It is a society, registered under the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act. The BCCI often uses government-owned stadiums across the country at a nominal annual rent. It is a private club consortium.

The mandate of a cricket board is:

To appoint ‘umpires’ or in a wider sense adjudicators to oversee the cricket progress and control the activity of the sport.
To organize competitions and create an environment of competition such that it nurtures latent talent to recognize and take them forward.
To increase nation’s prestige by churning victories
To build cricket as a economically viable entertainment industry
To provide for protection to the ‘gullible’ cricketers against any offense against them be it professional or legal.

This conjoins to be a political party and the objectives of a governing body upon its citizens. This could also mean that the power that is derived of just by the nature of cricket and also strongly backed by the revenues it generates, this form is possible and perhaps consciously created so.

5. The dissent of the enlightened, educated youth and the ‘classical’ cricket fans

This is the entire thing against the 20-20 cricket form by the mid-20s age group of people and people who call themselves to be the true cricket fans who would like the game form being its original self.
This could mean 2 things, for all we know ODIs could be a form to reduce the boredom of the 5-day cricket and the other thing could be that some are trying to look at the high and low cultures of viewing cricket and differentiate themselves by sticking to the ‘original’ game format and not being swayed by the recent 20-20 format.


So, to conclude, since I couldn’t come up with something better than what I read in a piece on Cricket and National identities, I just put that.

“When cricket goes, it is bound to take away with it something of a meaning of life of many of my generation. If on the other hand the game survives the vicissitudes of our time and many hope against hope that is does so, it will perhaps survive as a defiance and critique of modernity in a world moving towards post-modernity.”