Falling standards of cricketing fairplay | Kamlendra Kanwar

Published on 22-10-2007 In Sports

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Falling standards of cricketing fairplay

Do monkey chants amount to racial abuse? That is a question on which centres the controversy over whether any punitive action is called for against India or against specific Indian cricketing venues where Australian cricketer Andrew Symonds is claimed to have been `racially abused' by a section of Indian spectators.

Though noisy and boisterous behaviour by some Indian spectators has even in the past nominally irritated visiting teams, India's record as host has never come under a cloud. Indian seamer S. Sreesanth, who has been boorish and loud in retaliation to Australian sledging, has been an aberration in an otherwise exemplary team behaviour.
But how about the Aussies who are crying themselves hoarse over racial abuse and Sreesanth's aggressiveness? How has their record been?

If there is a cricketing nation that has raised the standards of skill in the game but lowered the standards of sportsmanship it is Australia.

For the Aussies, abusive remarks on the field to unsettle members of a rival team have been routine business. Sledging, as it is called, has never had a stronger practitioner than them.

In racial abuse too, they have been no babes in the woods. Close on the heels of the controversies on racial abuse of Symonds has come the report of Australia's Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission which candidly admits that racial abuse is prevalent across the sporting world of Australia, including its cricket grounds.

The report points to `racial sledging' of South Africa's cricketers who "were referred to as kaffirs by a small section of spectators" at Perth in December 2005. It says that cricketers from Sri Lanka were "subjected to calls of `black c----' at Adelaide. The report adds that "for racism to have infected Australia's national summer pastime and a sport long regarded as one of the world's most `civilised' games is deeply concerning for a country that prides itself on being fair-minded and multi-cultural."

Any racial act anywhere in the world is reprehensible and must be fought. But without proper grounds to back the claim that the `monkey chants' by a few urchins were `racist' it is unbecoming of both Symonds and captain Ricky Ponting to make such a big hullabaloo about it and to vitiate the entire sporting atmosphere.

The BCCI Anti-Racism Commissioner Ratnakar Shetty touched a sensitive chord when he said in a newspaper interview: "All of us know how Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan was taunted by crowds in Australia. We know how they treated England's Monty Panesar. Look who is talking.

"

Shetty added: "I was present in Vadodara during the match, and the noise from the crowd was deafening. I don't understand how you could make out monkey noises from all that. What is the monkey noise anyway? Or Mr Symonds should report to us exactly what was said to him. Then it makes sense. But he has not done that, either."

In sledging, while the Pakistanis have always been known to pay the Australians back in the same coin, for some Indian players to retaliate the way they have was alien to the Aussies. This time around, fresh from their victory in the Twenty-20 World Cup, some Indian players too have gone overboard.

What is particularly distasteful is the aggressive body language of young S. Sreesanth who has become something of a problem lad. But for Symonds to virtually threaten the team that they would get a hostile reception from Australian crowds when they come on a tour Down Under later this year is to carry things too far.

One wonders whether the Australians act the way they do because the International Cricket Conference (ICC) bosses seldom take them to task for anything, while they come down heavily on the Asians.

It was less than an year ago that BCCI president and Union Minister Sharad Pawar was literally rudely sought to be pushed off the dais by Ricky Ponting at the presentation ceremony of the ICC Champions Trophy in Mumbai. True politician that he is, Pawar chose to swallow his pride because he has had his eyes set on the presidentship of the ICC.

Clearly, the Symonds incident would not have been blown out of proportion had Ponting shown maturity and not escalated matters. Instead of dousing the fire, he sought to fan the flames. That similar incidents of `monkey chants' occurred in Nagpur and then even in Mumbai is as much a reflection on declining Indian standards of sporting morality as of the reaction of some fans to the big issue made of the Nagpur incident by the Aussies.

Regardless of whether the gesticulations of sections of spectators in Vadorara, Nagpur and Mumbai amounted to racial abuse or not, it is imperative that a closer watch be kept on unruly crowd behaviour and on venues that violate norms. Such spectators that defy codes of conduct must be shown the door. Those of our players who set bad examples of behaviour like the overly aggressive Sreesanth must be disciplined.

At the same time, it would be reasonable to expect that the Australians would play the game in the true spirit, without abuses and sledging. Restoring gentlemanly conduct to the game of cricket is the responsibility of cricketers and cricket-lovers all across the cricketing world.

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