A model of hospitality

A strange phenomenon took place on England’s recent tour of Pakistan. During the first Test at Multan, and replicated thereafter across the country, there were scores of home supporters dressing up in English replica kit and red-and-white face-paint, and cheering on the visiting team.

Pakistani fans have received a bad press in recent years, largely as a consequence of the unruly scenes during the 2001 NatWest Series in England, when makeshift barriers had to be erected to prevent their over-exuberant fans from storming the pitch. But place these same folk on their home patch, and they form the very model of hospitality.

Take Karachi, for instance. A city in which Western cricket teams fear to tread, and where England were subjected to a fearful mauling in their one-off one-day match two months ago. The behaviour of the fans in the stands could hardly have been further removed from the perceived image of the city – and indeed of the country as a whole.

And the same and more had been true eighteen months earlier, when India arrived to launch their historic tour in 2003-04, and left to a standing ovation after one of the most thrilling one-day matches in history. It is too easy to focus on the negative aspects of the culture clashes that occur when two nations and their fans encounter each other in a cricket match. Just as often, by playing out their differences on the field, countries and cultures can be drawn closer together through sport.

For some reason, possibly because the booze-and-birds seekers save their money for the more culturally accessible venues such as Australia and South Africa, England’s trips to the subcontinent are especially good at bringing out the best in both sides. It helps no end that the hosts are always genuinely pleased to receive their guests – something that cannot always be said of the reverse legs. And, of the few England fans who do venture out to such far-flung venues, the majority tend to embrace their surroundings for better or worse – living frugally, eating locally and generally mucking in.

Whereas Pakistanis are paragons of virtue on their own turf, English and Australians are especially prone to let their standards slip when their turn comes to play the host. The problems, as with all such things, occur when the numbers escalate and the beer starts to flow, and that all-pervasive football culture begins to take hold. Some of the taunts that Jason Gillespie was subjected to during the last Ashes series (“Where’s your caravan?”) were, in their own way, as offensive as some of the things being said Down Under this summer, but the true potential for embarrassment comes when Asian teams are in town. The incident in 1992, when a pig’s head was thrown into the Pakistani enclosure at Headingley, remains one of the most vile episodes of English cricket’s recent past. Given the current international climate, we can only hope that any potential problems ahead of Pakistan’s visit this summer are nipped in the bud well in advance.

By and large, though, England’s cricket fans remain a good-humoured and amenable bunch, particularly those whose interest extends beyond a single day in a summer. The last mass gathering of English fans overseas took place at Cape Town last winter, when the Newlands Brewery was drunk dry in the new year sun, and several thousand inebriated fans sang raucous but good-humoured songs as England slumped to a long and lingering 196-run defeat. The local economy loved the English input, the team were grateful for the unequivocal support, and the South African fans were happy that at least one section of the English contingent were showing some resistance.

England’s overseas reputation owes much to the impressive self-policing of the Barmy Army, who began life as a ramshackle collective on the 1994-95 tour but have morphed into a formidable stakeholder in the game. During that same Cape Town match, senior members of the organising entourage – such as Paul Burnham, the chief spokesman, and Katy Cooke, the secretary – spent much of the game collecting for a raffle to aid the victim’s of the Asian tsunami, which had struck less than a week earlier.

At Durban two days beforehand, the bar takings from the end-of-match celebrations on the beachfront had also been diverted to the same cause. These are small gestures, maybe, but every little helps the reputation of the game and of those who follow it.