Posted in September 2011 …

Sep 29 2011
8 Comments
Cricket, Umpires

Why Two Cricketers Can’t Agree On Anything Anymore

During one of the warm-up games of the CLT20, Harsha Bhogle and Ian Chappell got into a bit of  a scrape. Jacques Kallis had just hit the ball to a fielder, who took a low-flying catch off the ground. Kallis, unsure about the validity of the catch, looked at the fielder, asked if it was clean, and, when told it was, headed off the ground. To Bhogle, this was the resurrection of cricket’s “gentleman” morality, one he hoped would be emulated around the world. By contrast, Chappell said it was all stupid; no one should expect the ‘spirit’ of the game to exist as it used to, and cricketers shouldn’t go around taking each other’s word.

What both were ultimately disputing was the reigning paradigm of modernity in cricket. In older days, when cricketers were amateurs, or even more recently, when they were still playing a fairly non-commercial game, the stakes were perhaps lower. Games were won, they were lost; no doubt cricketers cared deeply about results, but at the same time, the reigning paradigm emphasized good manners. That changed in recent years, to the point where cricketers can’t really trust one another. At some point, people began to argue that the ‘spirit’ of the game was nothing but a sham; there was nothing uniform or objective about it, and its application was far from universal.Why be a sucker in this scenario?

Unfortunately, we don’t yet have a new paradigm to replace it. Some have urged cricket to move from the personal to the modern through the introduction of an umpire review system. But it’s not clear at all that the cure works. Disputed catches are rarely, if ever, fully adjudicated through replays; more often than not, two fans (and two third umpires) will look at the same footage and reach different conclusions. There is an assumption that the modern replay system — and I include Hawk-Eye here — are scientific, objective versions of reality, but that’s just not the case. (Run-outs are, of course, an exception — except when they are really, really close.)

We’re going from an older paradigm — let’s try and get through this by gentlemen agreements and shared norms — to the modern administrative paradigm — let’s try and get through this by adding more rules, more technology and less ‘trust.’ The thing is, for all the failings of the old paradigm (Should a batsman walk? Should a bowler appeal even if he knows a batsman is not out?), I still think it was superior. I’m not sure if that’s because I’m wary of the new devices being unleashed, or because, deep down, I’m a Tory. (Uh-oh.)

Sep 23 2011
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Australia, Commentary, Cricket

Sourav Ganguly Has The Last Laugh

Just found this gem from YouTube. Watch Sourav Ganguly exult in Greg Chappell’s recent ex-communication from Australian cricket:

Sep 23 2011
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Cricket

Tiger Pataudi Sleeps Tonight

I’m afraid I didn’t know much about Tiger Pataudi before his death was announced today. I picked up some snippets during the recent Test series against England, but not enough. If you read anything about his career, read his interview with Sambit Bal of Cricinfo. I’ve rarely seen anyone dissect the perils and opportunities of captaincy as well as Pataudi does. E.g.:

Great players don’t necessarily make great captains. The trouble with natural cricketers is that they never have to think about the game. Everything comes so easily to them. You ask them to coach somebody and they wouldn’t know what to do. They have never had to learn, never had to study. Everything is so instinctive for them.

When commentators say players have a good “cricketing brain,” they’re talking about the instincts Pataudi apparently cultivated. Knowing limitations; looking after players; constantly prodding them, comforting them, challenging, inspiring them. How do you get men to be their best possible selves?

Sep 22 2011
2 Comments
Cricket, Indian Players, IPL, Rahul Dravid, Uncategorized

What The End of The Rahul Dravid Era Means

Here’s what I’m concerned about: Over the previous two decades or so, audiences have fractured. Some people have called this trend the ‘Daily We;’ the idea that people don’t have to go to the same sources for their entertainment or news and instead retreat to whatever suits their personal preferences best. This in turn means that the traditional gatekeepers — newspapers, broadcast news — find their come-one-come-all moderation no longer in demand.

What does this have to do with cricket? Even in the 1990s, the cricket stars were very real and clear. They played for the Indian national cricket team, which meant they had the flag to carry, and they weren’t explicitly commercialized (as the Indian consumer market was still developing). There was still a sense that these athletes — Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, e.g. — could appeal to a mass audience, not just by their performances but by their all-round middle class appearance.

Now, however, we face a different landscape. The danger of the franchise system is that it puts the money question up front. There’s no myth to the athletes; the bargain we make with them becomes explicit: we get entertainment, they get lots of money. This isn’t to say that cricketers didn’t care about money in the 1990s or even before; I think the match-fixing scandal that brought down Cronje et al. did more damage than we realize. But there was a useful illusion in place that allowed me — and still does — to look at Dravid and see hard work, sincerity, intelligence, and not “really rich guy.” So: will cricketers’ standing survive the IPL onslaught, when their salaries are so publicly determined, and that too by a mechanism as crude as an auction? Will T20 players command allegiances across the spectrum? Will Test-only ones do? Can they claim to be national heroes, or merely symbols of a niche market or the prize possessions of the Indian consumer?

Which is why the Rahul Dravid retirement was so poignant. He hadn’t played an ODI in years, and he seemed like he belonged to a different time. His brief return (and exit) to the stage only made gap in eras more glaring: will the future generations ever produce as fitting a man as this one? Didn’t it seem like a man from a simpler time had just passed — or am I only indulging silly, naive nostalgia?

Sep 20 2011
3 Comments
Cricket

New Cricket Blog

My friend Nikhil Puri has launched a new cricket blog. Send some clicks his way: www.thirdmancricket.com

Sep 20 2011
2 Comments
BCCI, Cricket

Just How Much Money Does The BCCI Make?

I’m sorry to continue writing about the BCCI; cricket administration isn’t my forte (nor is it a major theme of this blog). But seeing the quality of most cricket boards around the world, I think we ought to pay a little more attention to the overlords who supposedly take care of our game. So, some questions and answers:

1. Is the BCCI public or private? That is, is it a government agency, or a private corporation?

Well, here’s the tricky thing. For the ‘public’ argument: until a few years ago, the Indian government granted a tax exemption to the BCCI, a decision that meant the Indian government — which expends resources on cricket stadiums, security, etc. — collected zilch from one of the richest sporting bodies in the world. Then, in 2010, a government agency realized the exemption was silly because the BCCI is “no longer promoting cricket as a charitable activity and is now primarily a commercial entity.” As a result, the BCCI has paid more than 200 crore in taxes over the last couple of years, but that number may not be even close to their actual tax bill.

2. OK. So, given that they pay taxes and the Central government treats it like a business, the BCCI isn’t public, right?

Well, yes and no. Take a look, for instance, at the people who run the BCCI. Its working committee includes Anurag Thakur, a member of Parliament and Arun Jaitley, a leader of the federal opposition and a former Cabinet minister; the Finance Committee is led by J.M. Scindia, a minister of state in the central government; and the IPL committee is led by Rajeev Shukla, a former journalist and now a minister of state. I’m sure there are other political bigwigs on the list, but I think I’ve made my point: how private is an organization that is led by so many public figures?

Now, to be fair, the list includes a fair number of businessmen and ex-cricketers. And I’m sure some of these politicians have some knowledge and ability to contribute to the BCCI, but isn’t this all a flagrant violation of conflict-of-interest norms? Take a look, for example, at the U.S. Senate ethics code, which says:

A Senator and anyone earning an annual rate of pay above $25,000 and employed for more than 90 days in a calendar year:

  • May not affiliate with an outside business for the purpose of providing professional services (e.g., consulting, medical, real estate, insurance, or legal services) for compensation.
  • May not permit his or her name to be used by an outside business providing professional services for compensation.
  • May not practice a profession for compensation to any extent during regular office hours in the employing Senate office.
  • May practice a profession during off hours as long as the individual avoids affiliating with a firm.

If you say the BCCI is a private entity, then there’s no way these politicians can justify their decision to be a part of it (even though all BCCI officer holders are honorary). If you say the BCCI is a public entity, then it needs to be regulated better so that it is more accountable to taxpayers. And it’s not as if the conflict-of-interest is an abstract issue; the question has already come up in court:

A division bench of Justices P B Majmudar and R G Ketkar, while hearing the PIL filed by Shiv Sena leader Subhash Desai seeking a direction to the Maharashtra government to recover entertainment tax from IPL, asked the petitioner to make Pawar a party if he wanted to make allegations against him.

“If a minister holds a post in a cricket association, and the state cabinet is to decide on granting some exemption to the association…perhaps conflict of interest may arise,” the bench observed.

3. So how much money does this public/private organization make?

The thing is, no one really knows. In their latest release, the BCCI said it made a profit of roughly $40 million, mostly due to IPL largesse (profit: $25 million). But the IPL finances are notoriously shady and a Parliament steering committee has been trying to figure out how much tax the BCCI owes the government:

The Committee has noted that the Board had been enjoying questionable tax benefits having got exemption to the tune of Rs 225 cr before 2007 & having submitted only Rs 92 crore out of the Rs 118 crore that was demanded in 2007.

Moreover out of the Rs 375 crore Tax that that was demanded in 2 years from 2007 to 09, the BCCI has paid only Rs 249 crore.

The Committee said it’s astonished that the Income Tax Department could not finalise the assessment of income of BCCI for the last three years.

4. Where does that leave us?

Not sure. In the end, we have a bunch of political honchos running a game that makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year and is a national passion — but we don’t really know how transparent their books are; we don’t know why certain states levy an entertainment tax and others don’t; and we don’t know how professional the whole outfit is. The problem is that more government intervention isn’t necessarily the answer, but more transparency may be. Does anyone know, for example, if Indian MPs are required to disclose their incomes and stock holdings? Does anyone know if the BCCI has a charter that spells out how it’s possible that an office holder can also own an IPL franchise?

Sep 18 2011
8 Comments
Cricket, Uncategorized

Four Years of Ducking Beamers

This month four years ago, I started Ducking Beamers: A Cricket Blog. The inspiration for the name came from a moment during India’s 2007 tour of England, when S. Sreesanth (accidentally) bowled a beamer near Kevin Pietersen, who fell to the ground and stared incredulously. I liked the complexity of the event: if Sreesanth had bounced the ball so that it crossed Pietersen’s head — and even hit it — he would have been congratulated by his teammates. The violence of the ball, in other words, would have been deemed ‘acceptable.’ But because he simply hurled the ball at the batsman, he had to apologize.

At any rate, four years ago I was  a fresh college graduate interested chiefly in the post-colonial issues posed by the game (CLR James’ book still lay, unread, on my bookshelf). So, I began with a post on Norman Tesbitt, a racist British minister who suggested all immigrants needed to root for the English cricket team as a loyalty test. Then, in early 2008, the Harbhajan-Symonds mess occurred, giving me more opportunity to explore the game’s racial undertones. (It’s embarrassing to read now where I stood on that conflict; I really should have sided more explicitly with Symonds.)

Over time, though, I have become interested in two topics: a) How do cricket fans experience the game now? That is, what has changed about the medium — from radio, to television, to the Internet — and how does this change affect how we ‘see’ the game? And b) Cricket’s troubled relationship with modernity. I have come to look at Test cricket as a crucial and necessary anti-modern space; a tribute to an earlier rhythm of life that did not emphasize human agency or ability, but rather the power of nature and fate. That seems more abstract than I wish, but browse through a sample of my favorite posts below to get a firmer idea of what I’m about.

Before that, I want to say thank you to my fellow bloggers for making this a rewarding endeavor. Despite my best attempts, my blog receives little more than 3,000 visitors each month (IPL and World Cup seasons aside). But I’ll trade any flood of visitors for an insightful comment from Homer, Kartikeya, Devanshu, Samir, or the many other bloggers smarter than I. As they say here in the U.S.: Four more years!

A SAMPLING OF MY WORK:

My first post: “I Can’t Get No Assimilation“

PERCEIVING CRICKET:

“Celebrity Culture: When Shah Rukh Khan Met Dhoni“

“The Best Cricket Camera Angles“

“Living in a Textual World“

“Waking Up to the Result on the East Coast“

“Sacked IPL Cheerleader“

CRICKET AS ANTI-MODERN:

“Eoin Morgan and the Case Against Modernity“

“Crying for Bucknor/The Umpire as Tragic Figure“

“The English ‘Heavy Roll’: Chance, Agency, and Spitzer“

Sep 15 2011
1 Comment
BCCI, Cricket, Post-Colonialism, Racial Boundaries, Uncategorized

What Does the BCCI and Cricket Mean to the Indian Middle Class?

I want to sum up the debate on the regulation of cricket in India (as my last post, apparently controversial, provoked all sorts of opinions). There are, largely, two broad themes at work here: first, the legal and technical problem of controlling the BCCI, and second, the cultural and moral and political importance of cricket and Indian nationalism.

For more on the first problem, see my previous post. There’s a question about whether or not the BCCI is a private entity — and therefore exempt from public transparency laws — or a public entity that controls a major public interest with state patronage. Personally, I’m of the latter view. Even here in small-government America, the state does periodically involve itself in the workings of its sports leagues; most notably in recent years over the brouhaha about steroid use in baseball.

But let’s talk more about the second problem: it’s clear that cricket is modernizing, and one of the major drivers behind this trend has been the Indian middle class. The world is waiting for two markets — India and China — to take over the role of the American consumer and keep the global capitalist machine humming. And we, as cricket fans, are getting our first glimpse of the power of the Indian side (rise of T20 format; the IPL; the maddening schedule; the fights over UDRS).

But there are also some tough questions here, both for the game and Indian society at large: will the Indian middle class act the same way as the European/American ones did during the Industrial Revolution? Rana Faroohar of The Daily Beast doesn’t think so, observing an odd mix of “pride and insecurity” in the newcomers:

The emerging bourgeoisie is a patchwork of contradictions: clamorous but rarely confrontational politically, supporters of globalization yet highly nationalistic, proud of their nations’ upward mobility yet insecure and fearful they will fall back, fiercely individualistic but reliant on government subsidies, and often socially conservative. Many of the aspiring elite seem willing to let the powers that be—whether authoritarian governments or elected ones—call the shots as long as they deliver the spoils of growth.

Political observers more astute (and expert) than me are needed to explore the full range of pathologies (and abilities) of the Indian middle class. But I have noticed a worrying trend wherein on-field disputes — think Harbhajan-Symonds — are conflated with some conception of “national honor.” It was even said once that India’s not being able to host IPL-II was a cause for national shame.

Andrew Miller of Cricinfo has recently suggested that ridicule is the best way to prod Indians to act and change. Indeed, I think a major force driving the recent anit-corruption protests in the country has been the feeling that the Indian babu is not just breaking a moral code — that much can be forgiven — but also humiliating and embarrassing the country. But in international contexts, some Indians are too quick to defend their institutions and ways, so much so that it leads them to a blind defense of the BCCI and its overlords. (Related e.g., Sunil Gavaskar’s recent tantrum about Stuart Broad wearing a sponsor’s cap at a presentation ceremony and what it said about supposed English ‘double standards.’)

I worry that the “bad” features of the Indian middle class — the Hindu nationalism; the post-colonial inferiority/superiority complex; the insecurity; the brash consumerism — will win over the “good” features — the ingenuity; the drive; the audacity. And I fear this battle will spill over into cricket faster than we all realize.

Sep 08 2011
20 Comments
BCCI, Commentary, Coverage, Cricket

The BCCI and the Right to Information Act

I don’t normally pick fights with other cricket bloggers, and I don’t mean to start one with Kartikeya (over at A Cricketing View). From the rules of the game to the innards of cricket administration, this guy knows his stuff and he’s far better at finding details than I am. But his latest effort, which critiques an apparently inaccurate Times of India article on the BCCI, reaches some conclusions that are a bit too dangerous. Let’s do this:

Kartikeya is angry that the Times of India continue to peddle the conflict-of-interest angle on Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shashtri. He doesn’t think anybody has looked at the BCCI contract properly, and he backs up his claim with some interesting evidence. So far, so good. But then, he goes to a dark place:

Can you imagine the havoc that journalists with the standards of Pradhan and Narayanan could wreak if they were able to use the power of the Right To Information Act? The two have demonstrated a total inability to be fair to the subject of their story. This must surely be the first rule in any inquiry. [...]

I will support bringing the BCCI under the RTI if Bennett, Coleman and Co. and The Times Group can also be brought under it. In general I think private corporations (both for-profit and non-profit) need to be scrutinized a great deal more than they currently are. I will support bringing BCCI under the RTI if Sport Pages (which are about entertainment as much as they are about news) and Gossip Pages of newspapers are no longer considered to be “journalism”, in the sense that political current affairs reportage is considered to be journalism.

The charitable view of this line of reasoning is that Kartikeya is annoyed other people — that is, professionals paid to do this kind of work — can’t match his own research. And I completely agree with the sentiment; God knows I have plenty of axes to grind when it comes to the Times. That being said, however, the burden of proof when it comes to information and transparency lies with public bodies that use public funds, not on how private citizens will use the information. This is a basic point, but one that’s often lost even in “advanced” democracies like the United States. As a former reporter here, I can’t tell you how often town clerks would ask me why I asked for public documents, even though the reasoning behind a citizen’s request has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not information should be released.

So, a word of advice to Kartikeya: Critique sports journalism all you want and make sure they get the facts straight. But private corporations don’t have as high a burden as public ones do (I can’t even imagine bringing corporations under RTI, since that would mean business and trade secrets would be open to competitors), and whether or not the BCCI is transparent shouldn’t be dependent on how others act. Also: lay off the gossip pages. I like ‘em.

 

Sep 07 2011
3 Comments
Bangladesh, BCCI, Cricket

Institute Term Limits for (Bangladesh) Cricket Captains

Bangladesh have sacked their captain and vice-captain after some less-than-stellar results against Zimbabwe. The sacking has already raised some questions; Cricinfo reports some directors on the country’s board were not consulted.

Which leads to me ask: Why don’t we have term limits for cricket captains? In current political parlance, ‘term limits’ are often proposed as a way to prevent politicians from consolidating power. But the idea of having a set term of office actually has a long history, stretching back to the U.S. Constitution, which famously gives a 2-year term for House members; 6 years for Senators; and 4 for Presidents. In contrast to British (and Indian) Parliament, which can call general elections when they please — a practice the authors of the Federalist Papers labeled “dangerous” — the American system gives office-holders space to achieve what they can before turning to the public for approval (or rejection).

Obviously, cricketers face different challenges from politicians, and other considerations — form, physical shape, etc. — are involved. But I think boards would do best to pick a captain, set a term limit — 2 years, perhaps — and say, “This appointment will not be questioned until the term is up” and give him their best shot. Dissenters will realize they can’t do anything to topple the leader, and captains realize they have limited time to prove themselves.

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