Title: A captain you
can bet on
Author: Mark Manuel
Publication: Afternoon
Despatch and Courier
Date: April 18, 2000
The calling from Pune,
this reader burdened by anxiety for disgraced South African cricket captain
Hansie Cronje. And he was calling because he believed it was the Christian
thing to do. The call came when I was having coffee with an advertising
friend who had met with Cronje for the J Hampstead ads and was now defending
him hotly.
She was telling me fiercely,
"Listen, I have met Cronje, and I can tell you he is not that kind of guy.
He has a clean feel about him. I know he is not guilty of all the charges
framed against him. He's been set up. Short-changed. I can feel it in my
bones." I was about to change the topic and discuss her bones, when the
phone call came.
Pune reader
The Pune reader unburdened
his anxiety onto me. "Everybody's talking about what a rotten guy Cronje
is, but don't you think it required guts to do what he did," he asked.
"What," I replied, "guts to accept money from bookies and fix matches?"
"No!" he said with some force.
"It took guts to confess
to his wrongs. Which other cricketer would have the courage to do that?"
I did not agree with him because, in my opinion, Cronje is a rat. "But
why don't you agree," the caller persisted. "It was the most Christian
thing to do, to confess his sins. The cricket playing world should respect
Cronje, they should treat him like a hero... like they did Shane Warne
and Mark Waugh who were involved in some gol-maal too."
"Look," I told him, "Don't
make me laugh! I know even lesser than the next man about cricket. I am
ignorant about the game and from what little I know, I find it dull and
uninteresting. Talk to me about boxing and soccer instead..." But he would
not have that. "Let's talk about betting, then," he said.
"Surely you too have
betted at some stage in your life." I had, in fact, as a school boy, college
student and young adult. "But," I told him, "I betted for bus tickets,
marbles and film stars' postcards when I was in school. And in college,
for cinema tickets, lunches and dates with girls. In the office, of course,
I betted for money. But that was only when some enterprising colleague
set up stakes for World Cup cricket and soccer matches. Or for the Derby."
"Then," the voice from
Pune said triumphantly, "you know what it must feel like to indulge in
a little flutter." "Of course I do," I answered. "But, the betting was
always two ways. It was equal. My money against somebody else's. Both of
us had a fair chance of winning.
It was never three ways
with the team or person we were betting on playing a role in influencing
the winning decision for a consideration. My winning or losing the bet
depended on the fortunes of the teams or the sportsmen playing. And these
fortunes could change either way even at the last moment of the game. That
is what makes sports such a great leveller. Everybody has an equal chance
of winning.
The sportsmen are expected
to go out and give of their best. If they win, or their team wins, then
great nothing like it. And if they lose after a closely and keenly-fought
game, then there is victory in defeat too. The world admires champions
who are graceful and smile even in defeat."
"You are confusing the
whole issue," the Pune caller accused me. "This is not about victory and
defeat. This is about a captain who takes his career in his hands and decides
that come what may, he will be truthful. This is about Cronje, a practising
Christian and born leader.
He guided the South African
cricket team from its status as a nervous newcomer (after two decades of
isolation) to a position near the summit of the game. A skipper admired
for tact, diplomacy and determination through difficult political transitions
and a tiring physical schedule. I know Cronje said initially he was stunned
by the accusations. And he dismissed them as rubbish.
But which man would not
try to save his skin? Have you considered what he must have gone through
the night before he admitted his guilt? Have you thought how he must have
tossed and turned, like a fish out of water, before he decided to confess
his role in the match-fixing scandal?
Do you know he first
confessed to his priest, he cried for God's forgiveness, then he asked
what he should do next? And do you know, it was his strong Christian upbringing
that made him confess to his country? His priest assured him, 'Cronje,
you have confessed before God. The country and your people are nothing
before God... go do it'."
I was silent for a while.
Then I gave it to the Pune caller... with both barrels. "Where was Cronje's
Christian upbringing when he did wrong, when he accepted money from the
Indian bookies, in the first place? Earlier, I called him a rat. I now
think he is a rotten rat! Imagine hiding behind Christianity. If he is
guilty of match-fixing, that amounts to selling out your team-mates and
country.
Then Cronje is the worst
type of sportsman the world has known. Think of the poor cricket fan who
sleeps outside stadiums overnight so as to be among the first to buy a
ticket when the counter opens the next morning. What about him? What about
the people who sit through the day's play without food or water just because
they are crazy about cricket and want to see their heroes live, and not
on television?
Don't they have the right
to believe in their heroes? What about schoolboys who keep scrap books
of their cricketing heroes and posters on the wall? How dare cricketers
make a monkey out of them? I think cricketers are the most pampered, overrated,
overpaid, under-achievers in the history of sports. I think all lucrative
sponsorship deals should be taken away from them. Or, people should stop
using the products they endorse. I think their salaries should be decided
according to their performances. And I think those found guilty of match-fixing
should be criminally prosecuted."
Murky politics
It is true that I do
not understand much about cricket... but that is cricket that is played
on 22 yards of green turf in stadiums around the world. I understand all
too well what happens in the game outside the grounds and dressing-rooms
of the players.
I understand the murky
politics, the scandals and scams, the fact finding committees that are
appointed to look into them and the reports from these committees that
are never made public. I think the Board of Control for Cricket in India
is a bit of a joke. I think Indian cricket is a bigger joke.
If somebody, anybody
- retired Justice Y. V. Chandrachud, sports writer S. K. Sham, ex-cricketer
Manoj Prabhakar, former BCCI president I. S. Bindra, does not come out
and reveal the names of the Indian players who accepted money to fix matches,
then Indian cricket will begin to look like Maharashtra politics.
Like Mr. G. R. Khairnar
still threatening to reveal the truckload of evidence he has against Mr.
Sharad Pawar's corrupt ways. How long are these set of jokers going to
take us for fools? They have made a mockery of cricket. I would compare
the game to the World Wrestling Federation's "Wrestlemania" on Star Sports.
All rigged... but good fun and entertainment, none the less.
A tamasha in which the
good guys don't always win. Witness the stupendous success of the evil
Undertaker in the ring, or Dr. Death, and you'll know what I mean.
In fact, my faith in
cricket is so low that I won't be surprised if I see and hear on Star Sports
tomorrow that Hansie Cronje fights the Undertaker in Wrestlemania's Summer
Slammer. That's how bogus it all seems.