Clash of Cultures in International Cricket

The influence of South Asian countries(India,Pakistan,Sri Lanka and Bangladesh) in international cricket has increased over the last ten years .One effect has been a clash of cultures that recently led to the removal of umpire Darrell Hair of Australia from the International Cricket Committee (ICC) Select Panel of Umpires.

The transition started in 1997, with the election of Jagmohan Dalmiya , the BCCI(Board of Cricket Control of India) chief as Chairman, ICC.The seeds of this event were in turn sown earlier, with one-day cricket displacing test cricket as the more significant version of the game and advertisers, mainly from India, pouring in money into the game through purchase of TV rights.The mass appeal of cricket for spectators increased, and the snob appeal reduced in equal measure.Cricket fans became as passionate and as raucous as those of football

Snobbery among nations in some form or the other always existed, and it remained.In the pre-TV age, rarely was a tour of Pakistan completed by England or Australia without criticism, sometimes vociferous, about the country's umpires.If the criticism of India was more muted for umpiring, it was sharper for arrangements related to hospitality and travel.

ICC handled all the technical issues that surfaced.There were neutral umpires to forestall criticisms of bias, the appointment of Match Referees to enforce ICC rules, and TV based third umpires.They were less successful in managing the issue of cultural differences.

Cultural traditions in South Asia frown upon deliberate aggression among equals in one-on-one encounters, while accepting aggressive expression between groups. In cricket, on the other hand, it is considered "macho" for a fast bowler to accompany his bouncers with a few derogatory remarks and gestures to try to unsettle the batsman into giving away his wicket- an enterprise aided by the close-in fielders.Australians are considered to be the masters of this technique, called "sledging".Lacking fast bowlers of intimidatory pace, the Indians were usually at the receiving end of sledging.Under the gutsy Sourav Ganguly, the Indians changed all that, giving back as good as they got.Sledging was turned on its head in the 2001 India-Australia test match at Calcutta.Coming in to face off-spinner Harbhajan Singh in the fourth innings, a clearly nervous Ricky Ponting was told by ShivSundar Das standing at Forward Short Leg,"You can't play spin.Let's see how good you are."The hapless Ponting was caught by Das two balls later.Clearly, the Indians had absorbed a new culture, and improved on their gamesmanship.

In November of the same year Mike Denness, officiating as Match Referee in the Port Elizabeth Test between India and South Africa, took a momentous decision, deciding to penalise the Indians on two separate counts:
He reprimanded Sachin Tendulkar for tampering with the ball.
He reprimanded Viender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh and wicket-keeper Deep Dasgupta for excessive appealing.He also reprimanded captain Sourav Ganguly for failing to control his players.
In addition, Sehwag was handed a one match suspension.All the reprimands carried customary match-fee deductions.

I saw the incidents replayed on TV.Tendulkar was clearly wiping the seam of the ball with his fingers, "to brush away the grass", as he later explained.Nevertheless, handling the seam without the Umpire's express permission is not permitted, and the experienced Tendulkar definitely knew it.Technically he had violated the rules.Amiss may have been hard, but he was right.

"Excessive appealing" was, however, a clearly subjective and much more controversial decision.Earlier in the match Pollock and Hayward, the South African fast bowlers had roared like lions in appealing for catches at slip: at least on one occasion the bowler had mouthed a clearly discernible expletive on being turned down.The Indians had howled in unison like a pack of wild dogs for a bat and pad catch , with Sehwag rushing up to the Umpire from Forward Short Leg.

Granted that both forms of behaviour need to be curtailed, why did Denness ignore the first and book the second? This was a cultural thing, in my opinion.Western culture has an instinctive distaste ( fear?) for "persons acting in concert", something which is perfectly acceptable to South Asians.

The resulting furore in Indian public opinion centered more around the affront to their idol Tendulkar's integrity rather than the blatant bias in the other reprimands. The following events played out in quick succession:
Dalmiya insisted on the withdrawal of the suspension and reprimands.ICC demurred.
India defaulted on the next test at Johannesburg, which was declared in favour of South Africa.India and South Africa played an "unofficial" test match at Johannesburg instead in which the "suspended" Sehwag scored a century.
Denness was one of the participants in a Press Conference in South Africa where the Indian Press, spearheaded by Ravi Shastri tore mercilessly into the rationale behind his decisions.Denness, who was operating under instructions from ICC refused to speak. Subsequently, he was sacked.

For further details on this incident, follow this and this link.

The recent controversy involving the genial giant Inzamma-ul-Haq or "Inzy", captain of Pakistan, and the brusque, no-nonsense Australian umpire Darrell Hair at the recent Old Trafford Test in England has curious parallels and significant differences.England were batting in the second innings, fighting to save a match which was clearly in Pakistan's favour.Hair saw or smelt something, and changed the ball which was the sixty-odd overs old.Inzy had a word with Hair, was told that the ball had been tampered with, and the match continued.The teams then went in for tea.

In the absence of reliable evidence one can only speculate on what happened in the Pakistan dressing-room during the tea-break.Inzy must have been told that there was no TV evidence of ball-tampering.Tempers among the Pakistani team must have heightened, as they perceived an insult to their integrity by Hair and they refused to go out after the tea-break, ignoring the England team and umpires assembled on the field of play.A "panchayat" in the time-honoured South Asian tradition must have spontaneously emerged, with both pro-play and anti-play arguments being made.About half an hour later, we are told that when the Pakistanis had announced their decision to resume, Hair called off the match, awarding the result in favour of England.Technically he was right.Practically, he had deprived the public of their right to see a match they had paid to see, in addition to causing revenue losses to the English Board as well.
Predictably there was a public outcry in Pakistan: the integrity of their idol, Inzy, had been called into question.Hair was denounced as a "racist", but was Hair within his rights to have acted as he did?

The fact that reverse swing with the old ball can be aided by (surreptitiously) picking up one side of the seam with one's fingers is one of the worst-kept secrets of the fast-bowling fraternity.Umpires know this, and can tell by looking at an old ball if it is likely or not to reverse swing in the hands of an expert.Pakistani fast bowlers are experts in the art of reverse swing.They will be quick to retort that others have learnt reverse swing as well, and the condition of the ball can become favouurable to reverse swing from purely natural wear and tear.

Now the crunch question: if the umpire, looking at a ball, feels that its condition is such as to unfairly influence the outcome in favour of one side, can he change it? Both batsmen and the fielding captain can certainly appeal, and their appeals are frequently upheld by umpires who then change the ball.Can the umpire act pro-actively, without an appeal?

Had Hair not been so impatient with South Asian culture and refrained from forcing premature closure of the match, these issues could have been debated. But that is the nature of the man.Earlier he had no-balled Sri Lanka's Muralidharan thrice in seven deliveries for throwing, forcing ICC's intervention in this issue.When I look at Murali's action on TV, my sympathies lie entirely with Hair. There was also an issue with Sourav Ganguly which led to a complaint by the manager of the Indian cricket team to the Match Referee: the issue was not so much with the view Hair had held, but the manner in which he had expressed it(a cultural issue again)?
Forestalling all discussion, Hair had eMailed ICC, offering to stand down from the Panel of Umpires on a separation fee of $(Australian) 500,000.This was leaked to the press, Hair lost the support of all those who felt that he had upheld the tradition of firm but fair umpiring and the issue is drifting to its natural conclusion viz. the decision taken by Hair stands, but the man himself is forced out of the game.

One wonders at the inaction of the Manager of the Pakistani tem in all this.Surely he must have known that Pakistan were in danger of forfeiting a match they were winning.Was he unable to persuade his players to take the field?Also, what was Mike Proctor, the Match Referee doing? Why did he not intervene with Hair? Wasn't this precisely the sort of problem that Match Referees are required to thrash out?

Lastly, as I pointed out, South Asians are imbibing Western culture. Is the exchange going the other way as well?

The Abolition of Child Labor in India

The way to hell is paved with good intentions, goes a popular English saying.A recent incident poignantly underscored this fact.

Lat month the Government of India enacted a law banning child labor everywhere in the country.Last week, in a district town in West Bengal , the police arrested a 13 year-old boy on charges of shooting and killing another boy of the same age with an illegally acquired country-made revolver.

According to the boy's father, the boy, a school drop-out, had been working at the family-owned cycle-repair shop .West Bengal Labor Department officials had carried out an inspection of the shop two weeks previously, had told him that the employment of his son was in violation of the newly enacted law .His son should be removed ,and he would be prosecuted if he did not immediately comply.The boy stopped coming to the shop, and devoid of parental supervision, fell into bad company, and turned to petty crime- ultimately leading to homicide.

Who is the victim here?I can think of several.Who is the provocateur?The State will shrug off responsibility: a State has no ethics, morals or conscience. Officials are automatons, carrying out the letter of the law. This same law will hold the father responsible for the action of his minor son, but can a poor man, struggling to maintain his family by putting in long hours of labor afford the luxury of spending more time on a wayward son, made idle as a result of State action?

Turning to a broader question, can we not expect our legislators to seriously debate the implications of obviously populist legislation instead of always seeing things in the light of vote-bank politics?

Theatre.

The great Indian summer rush had begun.

Each year, in early summer, the proletarian backbone of the great Indian metropolis of Bombay bestirs itself , and starts its annual migration to the villages that dot peninsular and river valley India.With a little bit of money frugally saved throughout the year in his pockets, and a great deal of hope in his hearts the common man sallies forth to renew his ties with his kinsmen. There is the coming sowing season to be financed, there are marriages to attend and elderly relatives to be reassured, there is that patch of land to inspect and hopefully, buy. So they all get together, taxi-drivers and mill-hands ,watchmen and pedlars, cooks and milkmen to make this journey across the lap of Mother India. Since this is family business they are accompanied by their own : coy brides and sturdy matrons, unruly children and babes-in-arms, with a sprinkling of elderly relatives thrown in.And what way for them to go other than to buy a ticket to ride on the Great Indian Railways?

So it was that on a May evening many years ago that I found myself in an unreserved second class compartment of the Calcutta Mail at Victoria Terminus(VT) station in Bombay, packed mainly with men, a few women, half a dozen children, and luggage. What a variety of luggage there was! Canvas hold-alls with leather trimmings, brightly striped cotton durries stuffed with bedding tied up with string, steel boxes of all shapes and sizes, jute carry-bags, one or two earthen pitchers full of water, stored under the seats, in the aisles, and on the overhead luggage racks that doubled as sleepers.Roughly half the crowd would be travelling; the other half were hangers-on who had come to see the travellers off :parents, children, siblings, uncles, cousins, neighbors- all part of the great community system that surrounds and cocoons Indians wherever they are.Every one was in animated conversation: I could recognize about half a dozen different languages being spoken, and there were also others that I could not recognize.

The guard blew his whistle, the hangers-on clambered out, the dawdling travellers clambered in, the engine driver sounded a mournful hoot, and with a jerk and a shudder the train steamed out of the platform.The travellers readjusted themselves in the available seating space, and prepared for the long haul ahead.

A quarter of an hour later the train reached Dadar.About a dozen people got in: for them there would be standing room only.In five minutes' time the train resumed its journey: the next scheduled stop was Kalyan, an hour away.

An earnest man with a prominent Adam's apple in a frayed jacket and a lugubrious man in a barred T-shirt holding an enormous carry-bag were the last people to come in.They clearly had business on their minds, and once the train settled down to a rhythmical clackety-clack of the wheels on the track, the earnest man started speaking.His delivery was such that he could be understood over the background din: this, clearly ,was a man with experience

"Brothers," he started,"I stand before you once more to bring you offers you will never see again in a lifetime.How do I do this? All stockists, big and small, from Colaba to Khar know me by name.Whenever any goods has to be sold in a hurry, they know that I am the man with the cash, and the guts, to pick up the stuff within the hour, no questions asked. In turn I sell direct: no money wasted on stocks or middlemen: you, my brothers, benefit by low, low prices."

"To start with,"he continued," I'll auction this heavy lock .Feel its weight, see the riveted construction, and the smooth movement of the eight levers it has. Without a key you'll have to break it with a sledge-hammer.Come now, what am I bid for this masterpiece made in Aligarh?"

"One rupee," came a hesitant bid from one corner."One rupee and twenty-five paise,"came a more confident bid from he right.There was a lull.

"Only one twenty-five for a lock such as you don't even see nowadys?You, sir,"he turned to a moustachioed gentleman clad in a white dhoti and keenly watching the proceedings,"you're going home.Just think how safe you would feel if you had one of these locks on your rooms in Bombay instead of these new cheap Japanese locks that you surely used. "

"Two rupees", moustachio responded gallantly.

The bidding stopped at five rupees.The lock and a five-rupee note changed hands."Well," said the earnest man."Purely as Sales Promotion, I am going to return the money to the successful bidder of the first auction."This worthy, a pale man in a flamboyant bush-shirt, stretched out his palm and took back the five-rupee note without batting an eyelid."And in addition," went on the Master of Ceremonies,"as further incentive, I am going to offer a prize to all those who participated in the auction" He took out packets of playing cards, of a cheap variety available for about twenty-five paise in those days, and distributed them to all who could prove that they had participated.A murmur of appreciation went through the compartment; playing cards were just the kind of thing one needed to survive endless hours of cramped space in a long journey.

Outside, Kurla station whistled past, and the train began a gradual climb to Ghatkopar.

The next item to be auctioned was a torch,"a brass one, brothers, one your grandsons will inherit, with light you can see a mile away; not the cheap newfangled aluminum things now flooding the market."

Rural India values good torches; this one sold for ten rupees.This time as well, purely as Sales Promotion, the successful bidder, a farmer in a khadi cap, was returned the money he had paid,All the participating bidders were given handkerchiefs.The train whistled through Thane station.

The next lot o be auctioned was jewellery."Weighing seven tolas,made with American go ld, which, as you all know, created a storm in Jhaveri Bazar last month by selling at thirty-one rupees a tola." For the record, Jhaveri Bazar is Bombay's bullion market, a tola is the traditional Indian measure for gold weighing about 14 grams, and the price of 22 carat gold at the time was one hundred and eighty rupees a tola.

The jewellery sparkled brightly under the compartment lights.A number of people participated, with moustachio, flamboyant bush-shirt and khadi cap egging each other on."one hundred and ten rupees", came the call from a man in an outsize Kathiawari turban, who had quite immersed himself in the spirit of things.

There being no further bids, the auction came to a halt.

"Here you are,sir.You made a killing, this stuff is worth two hundred rupees at least.Give me the money."

Did the jewellery now sparkle less than heretofore? Kathiawari turban seemed reluctant to part with his cash."Pay up," said barred T-shirt with steel in his voice.Funny how no one had noticed his rippling biceps before.

"Yes, brother, pay up. You bid in the auction.We all did." This came quite sternly from khadi cap. The consensus of opinion, spoken in audible undertones around the compartment was that the bidder had to pay.

The bidder did pay, half-expecting a refund from the earnest man, who did nothing of the sort.The train entered Kalyan station ,the auctioneer and his assistant got down, as did a number of others, some bidders among them.A new lot of passengers entrained.

Kathiawari turban, lightened of cash, burdened with newly acquired stock of ten rupees worth of imitation jewellery and a knowledge of the ways of the world ,continued his journey home.