Beyond the Boundary - Rules, Laws and videotapes (12 March 1999)

12 March 1999

Beyond the Boundary - Rules, Laws and videotapes

Shakil Kasem

Cricket was always considered the last frontier in sports. It was one of the few games, is not the only one, which was governed by Laws, not Rules. It was the only game where each shot had its own name. It was the only game where the people who played were referred to as Gentlemen and Players, unlike other games where you could call them amateurs and professionals. In the not so olden days, when an individual turned pro, the public address system at English country grounds were wont to announce, "Today Cowdrey has become a Player, and so has ceased to be a Gentleman. He will from now on be referred to as MC Cowdrey, and not Cowdrey, MC." The times began to change.

It is said that the only permanent thing in life is change. So it was with cricket; the bastions of the once great and noble game crumbled with the Packer Series, and from then on the Ferris wheel of cricket fortunes began turning so furiously that cricket remained cricket no longer. No longer did cricketers get out of bed to don their flannels and play a match. They began to drive to the grounds, and THEN don their coloured pyjamas to play a match. No longer was it the red cherry flying across the lush green outfields. It was (horror of horrors!!) a WHITE ball speeding across the sponsor's logo at long on. No longer did the batsman pull his cap down rakishly over one eye, as he squinted into the sum at extra cover. Now the LIGHTS (?) are all user-friendly. The dialectics and sociology of night cricket have turned the game around. The times have definitely changed.

No longer do umpires raise the fingers to signal a dismissal: they now draw a hollow box in the air. No longer is it the prerogative of host countries to field their best umpires: neutral umpires now have to be imported. Dictionaries are being rewritten, and Webster is aghast because the term "umpire" actually MEANT neutral. The times have indeed changed.

Test cricket was all about the conscious transcending the subconscious. It was a never ending sequence of happenings in a cricket match played at the highest level over a prescribed period of time. It was time versus energy, where only one or the other could fashion an outcome or determine a result. It was not meant to be charted or segmented into compartments for runs or wickets. Test cricket was not meant to be graded by points. Cricket was always a game of chance, because it begins with a toss. I went through the rules for the present format, and it seems that, when nothing else works, it is supposed to end with a toss. I can't take any such changes anymore. But we live and learn as we grow older and wiser. And so it must be.

There is talk now of how the game needs to be revamped and how the poor, long-suffering, paying public should be given their just desserts, by way of massive doses of excitement lurking in every nook and cranny of test cricket. Bonus points and outright wins are the jargon of today. So also are bets, bribes and match-fixing. There is talk of the Lahore match, that a team that "should not" be in the final has reached the rarefied atmosphere by default, totally discounting the fact that the team which "should have" been there had choked when the chips were down.

There is talk also that the point system be revised. How? Perhaps we could introduce a jackpot over, say the 66th, where if the batting side can hit three consecutive sixes, it earns two extra batting points. Or, say, in the 82nd over, if the bowling side gets two wickets in consecutive balls, it also bags two extra points. We can get carried away here and suggest that three diving catches by the keeper in an innings count for power play and three points. Or maybe even... The possibilities are endless.

But the framers of these rules have, in their time, played their cricket in quite the fashion that most dictionaries would term dour. Results were the farthest item on their cricket agenda. Great players they may have been, but not great enough surely to play god to this game. The world used to be amazed at the way they played the fastest of all bowling with the dead meant of the bat standing on tiptoe. There would in all likelihood be a collective hush, and collective oohs and aahs, as the ball would drop dead at their feet, mocking the vultures clustered around the batting crease.

They were also those who wheeled their arms over looping the ball in the air, pulling it back and forth with nobody beyond thirty yards from the bat. And not a run would be scored. And there were those like me, who were prepared to walk miles, spend a fortune and sit for hours transfixed by such spectacles.

Lata Mangeshkar cannot be asked for obvious reasons to sing her songs attired in leotards, nor can Shweta Shetty romp around in a Kanjeevaram. But they have their own slots and their own prime time ratings. Each in their own way. Why ask them to change? Does art imitate life, or does life imitate Jagmohan Dalmiya? Should I ask?

These gentlemen in question are, I understand, in Dhaka at the moment, perhaps only a three iron distance from where I am, but do I dare or do I dare? That's another story.

Source :: The Bangladesh Daily Star (https://www.dailystarnews.com)