The Hindu Business Line : <I>Can cricket be saved from politics? </I>

As if scandalous cases of ministers in office being found guilty of aiding and abetting dastardly crimes were not enough for them to mull over, our parliamentarians have been venting their spleen on our harassed and demoralised cricketers playing in South Africa. The fact is that the Indian team so far has been overwhelmed by unfamiliar pitches and a superior team, which played better all round and managed their resources better.

Never mind the cricketing merits or otherwise of the team selection, strategy and such matters, what is shocking is the time wasted by MPs discussing the admittedly dismal performance, and, worse still, passing judgements on the coach, the captain and selection or recall of specific individuals.

To begin with, it ought to be none of their business. Or perhaps that is the real problem in our country. Maybe the way sponsorship funds support the game on the international level is to blame for this unusual interest on the part of our representatives in Parliament, and for their emotions, which exceed anything they exhibit when the results of our participation in the Olympics or hockey internationals come in.

Too much money in the game

As leading commentator Tony Greig observed recently, there is altogether too much money in the subcontinent involved in the game. But for this, world cricket administration would go broke. Televised at great cost through multiple channels, and supported by the advertising budgets of major marketing companies, cricket is really too much of a business.

Worst of all, it has managed to attract all the unsavoury and corrupting practices that one associates with every walk of life other than sport. One had been brought up on the belief, fostered by one's headmasters, that the very purpose of sports and games at the school level was training in leadership and gentlemanly conduct.

We deserve honesty, at least

Building character and moral fibre, integrity and sportsmanship, besides the all-important virtue of learning to play for the team and restraining one's own ego, have always been held up as the laudable aims of introducing games in the school curriculum and, of all games, cricket was most closely associated with all that was civilised in life. Yet it is this game that has become the happy hunting ground for politicians and fortune-hunters, not to mention bookies.

The number of instances of match-fixing, drugs, frauds, breaking of the rules and spirit of the game, ball-tampering, commissions of enquiry, suspensions and match-fee forfeits have cast a permanent shadow over the game.

One obvious indication that the interest of political chieftains is far from altruistic is that office-bearers in apex bodies have been alleged to have committed mismanagement, and worse, over money.

Perhaps the one thing that cricketers as a group ought to do is to swear to keep well away from politics and concentrate on the game; and not allow anyone who does not have a personal knowledge of the game to take any role in its management, especially on the money side of things. The people of the country deserve at least honesty in sport, even if our sides do not set the world on fire.

S. Ramachander

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