Playing the Game?

Mark Peel

Description

Of all games, cricket has long prided itself on its ethical traditions, but to modern sceptics the idea of cricket encapsulating a higher morality is actually something of a myth. Playing the Game? looks at the changing ethics of cricket, from its gentlemanly roots right up until the present day. After decades of sledging, intimidatory bowling, blatant gamesmanship and dissent, the MCC adopted `The Spirit of Cricket' in 2000 in an attempt to reclaim the game's original ethos - but was it already too late? While the concept is a noble one, its impact has so far been limited, as award-winning cricket scribe Mark Peel explains. As well as looking back to the infamous Bodyline series of 1932/33, Peel also investigates the effects of Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket; takes the ICC to task on their failure to quell rowdy behaviour and gamesmanship; examines the double standards of Western cricketing nations towards Pakistan; and delves into the recent ball-tampering affair that has tainted Aussie cricket.

Sujets

• Críquet
• History of sport
• Cricket

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 20 septembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785314667
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2018 Pitch Publishing A2 Yeoman Gate Yeoman Way Durrington BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Mark Peel, 2018
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
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Print ISBN 978-1-78531-437-7 eBook ISBN 978-1-78531-466-7
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1 Well bowled, Harold
Chapter 2 Bradman s Revenge
Chapter 3 The Throwing Controversy
Chapter 4 The Sedate Sixties?
Chapter 5 The Subversive Seventies
Chapter 6 Kerry Packer s Legacy
Chapter 7 Danger in Paradise
Chapter 8 The Prowling Tiger
Chapter 9 The Headmaster s Study
Chapter 10 Ugly Australians
Chapter 11 Conning the Umpire
Chapter 12 Muralitharan s Elbow
Chapter 13 An Oriental Superpower
Chapter 14 Mental Disintegration
Chapter 15 Monkeygate
Chapter 16 Ball-tampering
Chapter 17 England Bare Their Teeth
Chapter 18 McCullum s Crusade
Conclusion
Bibliography
Endnotes
Index
Acknowledgements
I D like to thank the following for helping with my research: Rodney Cavalier, Geoffrey Dean, Tim Munton, John Murray, Peter Parfitt, Pat Pocock, Ivo Tennant and John Woodcock.
I d also like to extend my thanks to the Library and Research Manager of the MCC Library at Lord s, Neil Robinson, and to the MCC Archivist, Robert Curphey, for all the help over many visits; and to the staff at the Central Library, Edinburgh; the National Library of Scotland; the Melbourne Cricket Club library; and the New South Wales State Library.
I am most indebted to my agent, Andrew Lownie, for all his efforts on my behalf; to Graham Hughes for his invaluable copy-edit; and to Jane Camillin, Paul Camillin and Derek Hammond at Pitch, along with Duncan Olner, Dean Rockett and Graham Hales, for all their work in bringing the project to fruition.
Mark Peel
Introduction
F EW passages of Test cricket have proved as riveting as the confrontation between Michael Atherton and Allan Donald during the fourth day of the fourth Test between England and South Africa at Trent Bridge in July 1998. Needing 247 to win, England had reached 87/1 when Atherton deflected a Donald bouncer to wicketkeeper Mark Boucher and was given not out by New Zealand umpire Steve Dunne, much to Donald s consternation. Convulsed by fury, Donald then threw everything at Atherton in a blistering six-over spell which Atherton survived unscathed, living to fight another day. The spectacle captivated the nation, especially as Atherton carried on the good work the next day to see England through to a highly satisfying eight-wicket victory; but one person disturbed by the physical and verbal confrontation was Colin Cowdrey, one of England s greatest batsmen and former chairman of the International Cricket Council (ICC).
In a stellar career between 1950 and 1976, Cowdrey, an England captain on 27 occasions, was the essence of decorum both on and off the field. Raised by a cricket-loving father and tutored by austere schoolmasters whose word was law, he learned to revere the game and embrace its finest traditions. With his natural modesty and charm, he was a cricketing idol to many, and although not averse to a touch of gamesmanship in his unwillingness to always walk for a thin edge to the wicketkeeper, this was a minor flaw in relation to a life of service to the game. It was entirely appropriate that, given his concern about declining standards of cricketing etiquette, he was the driving force behind MCC s Spirit of Cricket, a preamble to the recodification of the Laws of Cricket in 2000, commending the values of fair play and respect for one s opponents. It was an appeal that won support from the majority of the English cricket establishment and many cricket lovers the world over. Yet for all the efforts invested in spreading its message, it has had only limited effect in restoring cricket s lost soul, so that after a particularly acrimonious Test match between Australia and India at Sydney in January 2008, Jeremy Cowdrey, Colin s second son, felt moved to write to the Daily Telegraph to ask whether the Spirit of Cricket still meant something important or was just an empty phrase.
To Michael Atherton, the former England captain turned cricket journalist, it was the latter, a myth promulgated by Victorian moralists rather than an accurate reflection of the game as played by human beings rather than Gods . 1 Yet even if we accept this view, and that of social historian Derek Birley that Cricket, in particular, had been plagued by nostalgia since people first began to think it worth writing about , the Victorian ethos of fair play won allegiance not only on the playing fields of Eton, but also across broad swathes of the Empire. 2 From the eight years of school life this code became the moral framework of my existence, wrote renowned West Indian writer and political activist C.L.R. James, who grew up in Trinidad at the beginning of the last century. It has never left me. 3 Many others in the Caribbean thought the same. I always saw cricket as a noble sport and I tried to play in the true spirit of the game, recalled Gary Sobers, the great West Indian all-rounder. 4
It was the same ethos which had always inspired Bill Woodfull, the Australian captain in the bodyline series of 1932/33, and which he articulated with devastating effect to MCC manager Pelham Warner during the Adelaide Test, when he said that one side was playing cricket and one wasn t. It was to combat the genius of Don Bradman, Australia s run-making machine, that England captain Douglas Jardine had resorted to the tactics of bodyline: intimidatory bowling at the head and upper body (see Chapter 1 ). He justified such tactics by claiming that they in no way contravened the laws of the game, and on this he was supported by most of his countrymen back home. It was only when bodyline made a brief but bloody appearance in England in 1933 that opinion quickly changed, prompting an amendment to the laws that outlawed fast short-pitched balls aimed specifically at the batsman.
Following bodyline, England-Australia Tests returned to more traditional standards of rivalry, but beneath the outward bonhomie the bitterness lingered. Bradman, for one, never forgot the humiliation heaped upon his compatriots by Jardine, and when Australia unearthed two exceptional speed merchants in Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller post-war, it was England s turn to feel the heat, none more so than their revered opener Len Hutton (see Chapter 2 ). Beginning with a fusillade of bouncers on a treacherous wicket at Brisbane in the first Test of the 1946/47 series, they rarely let up thereafter. In England in 1948, Bradman s final tour, the popular Miller was roundly booed at Trent Bridge for bowling persistently short at Hutton and Denis Compton. In the opinion of Compton s team-mate Bill Edrich, Bradman was the best captain he d encountered, but nearly all cricketers agree that, since 1945, Australia under his captaincy had shown more ruthlessness, more cold-blooded determination to win, even at the cost of happy relationships, than any country has displayed, in 1932/33 or on any other occasion at all . 5 In time, Hutton fought back with Frank Tyson in Australia in 1954/55, as did Ray Illingworth with John Snow there in 1970/71, proving that any side with the necessary firepower would deploy it to the maximum effect.
During the later 1950s, the cricket world had been preoccupied by the vexed question of throwing, a question that Bradman, by now Australia s leading cricket administrator, called one of the most complex because it was so open to opinion and interpretation (see Chapter 3 ). Confronted with evidence that was often ambivalent, umpires and administrators tended to turn a blind eye to suspect actions, leaving bowlers such as South Africa s Cuan McCarthy and England s Tony Lock free to ply their trade. By the time of England s ill-fated tour of Australia in 1958/59, every state except Queensland had a fast bowler with a suspect action. Not wishing to disturb the waters - Australia hadn t complained about the ill-prepared Test wickets in England in 1956 - MCC suffered in silence against the throwers. They did, however, warn their hosts that they intended to confront the matter on their return, and the Australians, appreciating the gravity of the situation, attended the Imperial Cricket Conference at Lord s in July 1960. (They were normally represented by proxies.) The conference vowed to rid the game of throwing, and Bradman, in his role as chairman of selectors, returned home determined to act. It was a task he accomplished with his customary efficiency, culminating in the no-balling of Australian opening bowler Ian Meckiff for throwing against South Africa at Brisbane in November 1963 and his retirement from the game.
By then, Lock had rectified his action and South Africa s Geoff Griffin had retired after being repeatedly called on his team s tour of England in 1960, leaving West Indian Charlie Griffith and Derbyshire s Harold Rhodes as the prime suspects. Although the former was called only twice during his career, it was enough to condemn him following a life-threatening injury he had inflicted on Indian captain Nari Contractor. Various opponents labelled him a chucker , particularly for his bouncer and yorker, helping to embitter the West Indies relations with