Does the Gentlemen’s Game mean the Batsmen’s game?

An opinion gaining momentum in the recent past is that the game of cricket is increasingly becoming more and more favorable to the batsmen. Flat, batsmen friendly pitches, smaller grounds, more and more protective gear for the batsmen, the powerplays, and some may argue, a fall in the standard of bowling since the 70s, though this is debatable, have all made cricket a batsman’s game. Yet, if we give it some thought, we will realize that the bias towards the batsmen is not a recent phenomenon but a traditional reality steeped in the very ethos of the game.

No other sport, to my knowledge at least has a moral dimension as pronounced as cricket. Most other sports are usually tightly bound by rules, leaving very little space for ethical dilemmas to creep in wherein the sportspersons have to exercise their own moral discretion. The standard for these sports is usually that whatever is not prohibited is mandatory. It is only in the game of cricket that there is a grey area not bound by rules, yet viewed with a certain degree of moral censure. If we examine these grey areas, we will realize that the moral attitudes are strongly biased in the favor of the batsman.

Whether to walk or not is probably the most oft-faced dilemmas faced by cricketers. It has been at the centre of considerable debate lately after Adam Gilchrist decided to walk in an important World Cup match and exhorted others to do the same. The basis of his argument is if the batsman knows that he is out, he is morally obliged to walk. Sunil Gavaskar, in his book, Runs and Ruins, spoke of an incident while playing in Pakistan when he was out first ball and not given out. He did not walk because he had been given out so many times in Pakistan when he was not, he felt they owed him a few. This is the other side of the argument espoused by most players including, Sourav Ganguly and Ricky Ponting. A parallel to the same would be to appeal for a dismissal while knowing that the batsman is not out. However, strangely the same moral standard is not applied to the two. It has even been codified and was included in the preamble of the Spirit of the Game. Section 5 states that appealing, while knowing that a batsman is not out is contrary to the spirit of the game. In one instance, it has even led to a wicketkeeper being suspended for three matches.

The traditional bias against bowlers has been so strong that that when the googly was invented by Bernard Bosanquet, there were many who felt it was unethical for the bowler to thus, deceive the bastman! Now, such a suggestion would seem ridiculous but it does throw some light on the inherent bias in the game. The reason behind this strange discrimination perhaps lies in the old class division between batsmen and bowlers wherein batsman were the real gentlemen, while bowlers, merely players. It is most apparent in the moral censure attached to Mankading. The batsman clearly gains an unfair advantage by backing up too much and leaving the crease, whether intentionally or otherwise and if an unfair advantage is accrued, there must be a sanction, too. The problem with this form of dismissal was perhaps that the bowler questions the motives of the batsman in backing up too far and such an accusation by a player against a gentlemam doesn’t bode well.

A Suitable Boy: 19th Century literuture?

I read A Suitable Boy again recently. On my old blog, I had lamented the fact that I had never written anything on a book I so loved and discussed with like minded friends in such excruciating detail. Back in my first year in college, when we attempted to start the ill-fated book club, we never assigned a session to this epic of a book as we thought it had been discussed to death. However, this novel, so broad and magnificent in its scope, always throws up new things every time I read it. While I could go on and on about the characters of this book, in this post, I shall concentrate on Seth’s style of writing.

Written towards the end of the twentieth century, about a period in the middle of century of the century, this novel is very much in the tradition of nineteenth century European realist writing. This is in stark contrast of trend of magic realism pioneered amongst Indian writers by Rushdie and later espoused by the likes of Amitav Ghosh and Vikram Chandra.

Seth offers a hybrid blend of the fictional yet typical with actual historical characters and events. The main characters are imagined, but the fictional politicians Mahesh Kapoor and S.S. Sharma read a letter from the eminently real Jawaharlal Nehru – which indeed, as Seth informs the reader in his prefatory notes, reproduces, word for word, parts of a letter actually sent by Nehru. Nehru later makes an interesting cameo appearance in the novel. There is a lot of Scott in Seth’s book in his style of creating fictional characters within a historical background alongside real life figures. The fictitious city of Brahmpur in the fictitious state of Purva Pradesh is also an interesting blend of fact and fiction. It is not an imaginary city in a nowhere land but clearly in the Hindi heartland in North India with touches of Agra, Benaras and Ayodhya. This is similar to an Eliot’s Middlemarch which incidentally has been referenced by Amit Chatterjee, the character Seth modeled on himself.

Song

Sweetest love, I do not go,
For weariness of thee,
Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter love for me ;
But since that I
At the last must part, 'tis best,
Thus to use myself in jest
By feigned deaths to die.

Yesternight the sun went hence,
And yet is here to-day ;
He hath no desire nor sense,
Nor half so short a way ;
Then fear not me,
But believe that I shall make
Speedier journeys, since I take
More wings and spurs than he.

O how feeble is man's power,
That if good fortune fall,
Cannot add another hour,
Nor a lost hour recall ;
But come bad chance,
And we join to it our strength,
And we teach it art and length,
Itself o'er us to advance.

When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind,
But sigh'st my soul away ;
When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,
My life's blood doth decay.
It cannot be
That thou lovest me as thou say'st,
If in thine my life thou waste,
That art the best of me.

Let not thy divining heart
Forethink me any ill ;
Destiny may take thy part,
And may thy fears fulfil.
But think that we
Are but turn'd aside to sleep.
They who one another keep
Alive, ne'er parted be.

- John Donne

I don't think I have ever come across any piece of poetry which I like better than this.

One year back, I sang a song. Life is funny and very cruel. How does a person change so fundamentally? To think of a time when he could do almost anything. Anything agar tum kaho..