“Spirit of the game”?

Now, what has the Indian cricket gone and done? In the name of upholding the “spirit of the game”, they have gone and violated a rule. And the umpires were spineless. They should have stuck to their decision. On the contrary, they got bulldozed by the so-called soft sentiment “spirit of the game.”

The whole thing smells rotten.

Assuming the claim that the decision to call Ian Bell back was agreed to by everyone in the team, I want to put that matter in the context of a tennis match played decades ago, 1935 to be exact. The Davis Cup match featured Gottfried von Cramm playing for Germany against the United States. He refused the match point by pointing out an error by the linesman / referee [1]. That sealed Germany’s fate, losing the tie.

Was that an instance of positive “spirit of the game”? Michael Holding would have screamed a definitive, “NO!” had he been born then. Now, he has mused loudly why the “spirit of the game” went into hiding when “Harbhajan Singh got an inside edge … and was adjudged leg before wicket.” [2]

“You have got to be careful when you start talking about the spirit of the game,” Holding is reported to have said. And, I second him on that.

Going back seven decades plus, when Cramm conceded the crucial point he was literally thumbing his nose at the rules of the game. The rules are enforced by the umpire and umpire alone, at least in the days before Hawkeye and such esoteric stuff. The decisions have to be taken in real time. The lineman called the ball out because it did land outside the lines, and the umpire did not notice the ball grazing Cramm’s racket. Sorry, that was how the chips fell that day, on that point. That is that. Who was Cramm to overrule the umpire?

This point was made by none other than Don Budge who had his way with Cramm a few times. Budge was critical of this supposedly saintly disease, giving-the-point-away. Budge said that Cramm humiliated the linesman and the umpire in front of the crowd. Was that magnanimous?

The above is the sentiment expressed by Holding in the current instance: “”Ian Bell automatically decided that he was the umpire.” Now, was that the vaunted “sporting spirit”? Gag me with a spoon.

True, McEnroe insulted the linesmen and umpires, but he was forthright. He never claimed that he was sporting the “spirit of the game.” What you saw was what you got. But, look at Borg, what he did. He offered alibis after alibis for his failure to win the US Open - Forest Hills or Flushing Meadows, on grass, clay or hard court, day matches or night matches, airplanes flying overhead, the New York crowd and what not. This is no endorsement of “spirit of the game”, which is enhanced by acknowledging that the opponent bested you fair and square.

Now, what did the Indian team do? They bent beyond backwards to show themselves up as the “Bestest losers”! “Score one for our boys. We are morally incorruptible! We scored a moral victory! We are saints!”

That is as much balderdash as balderdash can be! Ask Holding.

It was not just Dhoni, but the whole team, a collective rationalization of failure, in a way. Building up excuses and offering alibis.

In all probability, Ian Bell or not, called back or not, the Indian team just did not show much fight, no girding up the loin. I do not mourn the loss, even as I wonder whether this series foretells the slide down the slippery slope to the middling status India has enjoyed for years on end in cricket.

Raghuram Ekambaram

Reference

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_von_Cramm

2. No Holding back, Clayton Murzello, MiD DAY, August 2, 2011