I don't know about you, but I always picture the Spirit of Cricket as a home counties middle-order batsman. Rotund, all polite smiles, the faint whiff of mildew and a weakness against the short stuff, a loyal and popular servant, yet not quite top class. A purveyor of elegant cameos, I imagine, whose cover drive would have conjured an approving wheeze from John Arlott on Sunday afternoon TV in the 1970s, especially if it was unfurled during a battle of wits with "that wily old fox" Peter Sainsbury, the balding Hampshire off-spinner. In short, I imagine the Spirit of Cricket looks something like AGE Ealham (Kent).It's a generational thing, I'm sure. Younger cricket followers in all likelihood think of the Spirit of Cricket as something altogether more modern and dynamic, a switch-hitting CGI ghoul, freshly risen from the loam, who smashes through the door of the changing room using his mighty willow, then menaces a group of bikini-clad Twenty20 cheerleaders with a cackling cry of, "Now, that's what I call a stumping opportunity". But that's enough about Sir Allen Stanford.I guess the Australian Spirit of Cricket is an altogether different spectral presence, too – one with unabashed body hair, exuding manly odors, chewing gum and squinting into a burning sun even when it's an overcast afternoon in Chelmsford. I should think that when the English Spirit of Cricket waddles self-deprecatingly into view looking down at the ground while modestly acknowledging any applause with a vague oscillation of its bat, the Australian Spirit of Cricket studies the pear-shaped silhouette, spits, readjusts its box and growls, "Strewth, what happened to you mate? Did you blow all the housekeeping money at the pie stall?"The Spirit of Cricket has been summoned frequently in the past week. It has been evoked to castigate first England and latterly Australia, and in particular Ricky Ponting who is – according to Duncan Fletcher – barely on nodding terms with the ghost of an idea of the notion of a hint of the Spirit of Cricket.It is the glove business that has caused the fuss. All week people have been asking if what England did in Cardiff was wrong. This is a tricky question to answer. Because at the top level of cricket the line between gamesmanship and cheating is a fine one. So fine, in fact, that the people who can pinpoint exactly when an action crosses over it are rarer than photos of Shane Warne with natural hair. Among those who play to the highest standard the watchword is simple: "Others cheat. I am professional."And that to me is what was truly galling about England's final-session shenanigans on Sunday – the complete schoolboy amateurishness of it. Andrew Strauss went to Radley and all I can say is if that is the sort of sharp practice they are teaching in English public schools these days then there's little wonder Britain is no longer capable of marching into somebody else's country and forcing the indigenous population to wear ill-fitting suits and make us all a fried breakfast.A few years ago Jim Smith ripped into Robbie Savage over the Welsh footballer's alleged diving with the words, "We have all seen players who were clever at getting penalties, but he is not even clever." The implication was that if a sportsman is going to cheat he should at least do it with a bit of guile and finesse. This is a fair point. After all, cat burglars and conmen are often the heroes of books and films, but nobody would have liked Raffles if he'd been a mugger. The same applies to the England cricket team. If you are going to piddle about wasting time, at least do it in the sort of crafty manner that will allow people to wink at each other and say "You see that? He's pulled a right fast one there, hasn't he?"Back in 1963 at Wembley Stadium British heavyweight Henry Cooper knocked Muhammad Ali (then still known as Cassius Clay) on to the seat of pants with a left hook straight to what Damon Runyon would have called "the old kazoo". When the bell for the end of the round sounded seconds later the future Greatest staggered back to his stool markedly groggy. In his corner celebrated trainer and bucket man Angelo Dundee went to work and – lo and behold – discovered a rip in his fighter's glove. A trip to the dressing room to get another pair bought Ali precious extra time to recover.In the following round he opened a gash above Cooper's eye and won on a TKO. In his next fight Ali defeated Sonny Liston to become heavyweight champion of the world. Forty-five years later, Dundee admitted in his autobiography that he had made the slit himself with his thumbnail and, in all likelihood, altered the course of pugilistic history.These days we rarely see the England cricket team when they are not wearing boxing gear. Perhaps if they took time out from posing around hitting the pads in front of the photographers and studied the history of the sport instead, Sunday's feeble antics would have been avoided and the Spirit of Cricket could have kept its feet up, whatever size and shape it is.
No comments:
Post a Comment