Cricket is being caught in a gale. Issues and controversies are appearing like boundaries in the midst of a Gilchrist innings. Too much sport is being played outside the arena. Pitches are being debated over, the definitions of acceptable bowling actions are changing, allegations are being hurled and retractions issued, captains are being suspended, then thrown a lifeline, England’s cricketers are being dragged to Zimbabwe, debates over morality continue to centre around cricketers but not over businesses, television viewers continue to miss the first ball. There is far too much happening and only some of it is good for the game. Meanwhile the seniormost player in the game completed 15 years as an international cricketer. It has been a very long journey, backs and fingers and elbows have felt the brunt, captaincy has been a wound rather than a throne, but few players in the history of the game have given more pleasure than Sachin Tendulkar has. He has changed over the years, the blade just a touch lighter, risk and its attendant calculations have entered his life where earlier they were scoffed at and the relentless pursuit of runs and success have brought millions. And yet Tendulkar remains a cricketer, not a social being, not an activist. He said a month ago that he is still uncomfortable with being in the limelight and that is true, for he is first a cricketer; he would rather sign his name with his bat. He has been a gem and when you have one for a long time, you take it for granted. Inevitably, questions about his future will be asked. Fifteen years on the field can tax the biggest, and the most enthusiastic. A man 31 years and 7 months old is a young man, but a man who has 15 years of top level sport behind him isn’t. He has experimented with being a man who makes safe investments and he has scored runs. But Tendulkar was born to be an adventurer, not an accountant, he was born to meet challenges, not deflect them. We would like him to finish 20 years in the game. Much will depend on his fitness, for desire, the other fire that diminishes with age, is unlikely to desert him. When the game goes murky, as it has these last three months, you can still look forward to the pure passion of a Tendulkar. It is there. Sourav Ganguly has much more coming his way. His life has sought turbulence and sometimes created it. He has evoked strong opinions overseas, where every action of his has to be tinged with evil. A lot of that comment was nonsense. But now, through a combination of injury and slightly wayward judgement he finds his career at the crossroads. His personality has driven his career in the last few years but to rediscover himself he needs to come to terms with the fact that he made his reputation as a batsman first, as a captain only much later. He has to be batsman first, then leader; if he loses the first, he will lose both. But Ganguly cannot become a bad captain overnight and those that start to think so run the risk of being shortsighted. Throughout his career, Ganguly has surprised people and he may yet do so. He, and his supporters, might consider the two-match ban harsh but he was never too far away from it. He has tempted the thin line between aggression and disregard for regulation. His aggression was vital for the rejuvenation of Indian cricket, now he must show he is not a liability to future progress and for that he must score runs again. He might well ask though why he has received a suspension for two test matches. His transgression, real or supposed, was in one-day cricket and the sentence must come in one-day cricket. He must be off the field for two days, not for 10. The rule he breached isn’t even a rule in Test cricket. Meanwhile chucking comes out of the closet and goes out of the window. The ICC really had no choice. Having embraced technology, they could not turn a blind eye towards it. Muralitharan had a very strong legal case. If he bent his arm so did many others and who knows, like the outrage that accompanied the discovery that the earth was not flat, our reactions might be coming out of an adherence to what we thought was right but wasn’t. So is McGrath a chucker? Is Pollock? Was Botham? All we are saying now is that they, like everyone else, bent their arms and straightened them just before releasing the ball. It does not make them part of the Gestapo or the underworld. There is one concern though. If 15 degrees is the acceptable limit, there has to be a system of measurement. We must know if a bowler bends his arm 12 degrees or 17. We need the equivalent of a pathology lab where a bowler’s sample can be sent. And if chucking and suspension is not enough, we have revisited match-fixing, an area where the erstwhile ICC management was found to be weak, and we are again confronted with the hypocrisy of asking cricketers not to visit a country while businessmen make profits there. Far too much is happening. Maybe Pollock needs to curl some great outswingers, maybe Tendulkar needs to hit a hundred. Cricket needs to be a contest between bat and ball again; not coloureds vs whites, not one vote vs another.
