Big Match 2020: But is it cricket?

SPORT – politicking

So, it’s that time of the year again. Yes, it’s the silly season that comes around once too often for some tastes. But hang on. If you’re not sure whether we mean cricket or politics un-loverly politics – well, join the club. Because it’s becoming increasingly hard to tell the gentlemen’s game apart from the other spectacle, isn’t it?

For starters, try explaining the game of cricket to a foreigner who has no clue about the greatest sporting endeavour down the centuries. Think it might go something like this…

“You have two sides: one out in the field, and one in. Each player that’s in the side that’s in goes out, and when he (or she, in this age of equality) is out, they come in; and the next player goes in until he or she is out.” 

“When they are all out, the side that’s out comes in; and the side that’s been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes there are players who are still in and not out.” 

“When a player goes out to get in, the players on the other side who are out there try to get him or her out; and when they are out, they go back in and the next player in goes out and gets in. There are two officials called umpires who stay out there all the time; and they decide when the players who are in are out.” 

“When both sides have been in and all their players have been given out, and after both sides have been out twice after all their players have been in, including those who are not out – that’s the end of the game.”Then there’s the other game. 

Picks and quicks

For a while in 2020 it was promising and looked set to be an interesting enough innings after the side that was out for five years got back in again. 

True, their opening batsman had never played in the top order before, being something of a pinch hitter at best. But something about the way he now went around inspecting the state of pitches at the drop of a hat stirred up a sense of confidence in even the sceptics, many of who remembered him as a deadly bodyline-type bowler. In fact, it was his blistering pace attack that had helped the home side to win the long-drawn-out ‘Big Match’ (that supposedly unwinnable encounter) way back in 2009. And by now, everyone has forgotten that some of the match referees had deemed that the way the team played at the ‘death stage’ of the closing innings was ‘not quite cricket’.

Trust the officials on and off as much as the spectators to be fickle. Because not long after that ‘famous victory’, fans of the big hitters who were then in wanted the home side out. This was largely because the top-scorer at the time showed himself to be too ambitious and wanted to stay on at the crease even after the umpires had clearly indicated that he couldn’t bat a third time. Funnily enough, the third umpire to whom his appeal was referred also concurred with the madding crowd – the lad with the red scarf must get out because he’d been in for so long it had gone to his head, and his supporters were getting unruly. 

Regrettably, the combined schools team that came in soon after them proved to be a damp squib during their short innings (2015-19). All hype and precious few runs on the board to show for all their pains. 

Even RTI, that handy bat, retired hurt (by bureaucracy). And 19A, pundits say, showed itself more of a U-19 calibre than first-class cricket – although its legacy is still showing in the laws of cricket and a few sterling bats playing stalwart innings (judge not lest ye be judged). Under the Duckworth-Lewis of ‘rain spoils play’ for fifty long days in October-November 2018, they still couldn’t hack it.

Pans and plans

Then along came the silly season – no security guards at the gate – to queer everyone’s pitch. Sorry to report that it was the nasty incident of hard violence in the boys’ tent that sparked off a change of heart among the safety-conscious spectators. A short but explosive innings by not-quite-cricketers put paid to the combined schools team. The best-laid plans of cunning strategists came to fruition while the side that is now out was still in. April is the cruellest month (it was in 2019), though this March May prove to be a closer contender. Howzaat?

First, of course, the fans may need a little help sorting out the men from the boys. Much like the Colts and Mustangs, there’s some doubt as to who’s who and which alma mater one’s nurturing mother is. 

Is the tent known as ‘Presidential Commission of Inquiry’ in the right here, because cricket boards are prone to political persuasion and persecution? Or does ‘High Court Trial-at-Bar’ have the better facilities to sort out contentious issues for a more assuredly winning national team? Whose side is the air-conditioned ‘AG’s Dept.’ on, anyway? And why have the Match Stewards decided to selectively collar the Old Boys of only one school for the right-Royal treatment, perhaps because their Skipper bats for both sides? Where’s the justice in that, when the Night-Watchman who abused those innocent schoolboys many moons ago is still at large?

Do you think the side that’s in will get to field more of its players in the forthcoming cricket board elections? Especially those tacticians whose miris-kudu googlies get them a ringside seat in the house! Or will the aficionados of fair play in the pavilion prevail? Would it not rather depend on the hoi polloi from the outstation schools for whom anything goes… as long as they have their bands and booze!

[Journalist | Editor-at-Large of LMD | Writer on Politics (‘just not Cricket’)]