M Roberts: Fundamentalism In Cricket (12 Jan 1996)

Fundamentalism in cricket: crucifying Muralitharan

Melbourne, Wednesday - In Australia, as in the West today, fundamentalism is not only suspect, it is detested. In this view (some) Muslims are the epitome of contemporary fundamentalism. Yet, reposing righteously in this anti-fundamentalist terrain is a species of fundamentalism. In the sunny fields of cricket these purists have assassinated Muttiah Muralitharan by the Book. Their scimitar is both sharp and uncompromising.

The rules of the game decree that bowlers cannot throw. The meaning of this regulation is to deny them unfair advantage. One can wrist bowl, sling bowl, cut bowl, spin bowl - but one cannot throw bowl. That would be chucking; dirty. The intent and meaning on this point is quite clear. And reasonable enough.

But as with all bureaucratic rules there are grey areas, ambiguities. What about push bowl? Sort of push bowl? Sort of bowl bowl? What about arms that are deformed, withered or otherwise abnormal?

Blessed and handicapped with a bent elbow and a rubber wrist, Muttiah Muralitharan is in this grey area. His arrival in the Antipodes in recent years has immediately generated controversy. Both Australians and New Zealanders, as we know, are forthright people: they speak their mind. Muralitharan`s action has inspired purist comment, fundamentalist views.

Indeed, as events have turned out, Muralitharan has helped to sort out the chaff from the wheat, the purists from the pragmatists. The latter look to the meaning of the law: if there is no manifest advantage and no manifest throwing, then, the benefit of the doubt goes to the bowler.

On this reading, then, Bruce Yardley, Steve Dunne and Allan Border are pragmatists. Whereas Ashley Mallett is not: Muralitharan, he says, throws. He is, like many Antipodean spectators from all walks of life who have decided against Muralitharan, a puritanical cricketing fundamentalist.

Fundamentalists do not know the art of compromise. Their righteous zealotry is piously strict. They go by the Book. Darrel Hair has emerged as the Ayatollah of cricket purists. His fatwah - pronounced before a stunned crowd of some 55,000 on December 26, 1995 - has guillotined Muralitharan`s arm and placed the lad on the shelves of history.

He - and his backers in high places behind the scenes - have pursued the letter of the law rather than its meaning. They have not attended to Muralitharan`s unique anatomy: a plasticine wrist and 32 percent deficiency at the elbow. They have relied on the Book and denied the existence of grey areas.

Their epistemology is based on either or assumptions: every phenomenon is either black or white; there are no grey areas. There is one Truth. The Book reigns. They kill the joy of cricket. They are puritans. So, Q.E.D. Muralitharan.

Source:: Lake House/Lanka Internet Services