Regulating Finance, Regulating Cricket: The Spirit Returns

The New Yorker’s business columnist, James Surowiecki, recently wrote about the difficulty of regulating the financial sector: too many rules, and innovation and creativity is stifled; too little, and, well, we lose a chunk of the economy in a housing bubble and banking breakdown.

His sports-heavy description of the available regulatory models, however, led me to think about cricket’s own rigid structure. Surowiecki argues that Europeans have tended to prefer a “principles-based” system that does not forbid specific financial practices — say, securitizing mortgages and repackaging them — but instead proposes vague ideas that promote proper fair competition. The difference is akin to the way referees adjudicate American football and real football:

Football, like most American sports, is heavily rule-bound. There’s an elaborate rulebook that sharply limits what players can and can’t do (down to where they have to stand on the field), and its dictates are followed with great care. Soccer is a more principles-based game. There are fewer rules, and the referee is given far more authority than officials in most American sports to interpret them and to shape game play and outcomes.

Ironically, cricket turns out to follow the American model more than the European version, and I think it’s time for a change (if only to be fashionably anti-American). During the Sydney Test scandal, we all became hopelessly mired in rhetorical debates: did “monkey” ever mean more than just a monkey? (And what about “bastard”?) But we had lost the forest for the trees, as our outdoorsy friends would say.

Rather than get bogged down in silly semantics — you say potato, I say racist — umpires and referees should instead evoke only the game’s “spirit” in determining which action to regulate and which to let slide.

Letting The West Win: Ganguly/Warne (3)

Recently, I’ve found it difficult to make even the most basic points to my friends — the importance of empirical evidence in rational debate, for instance — but I want to take on a much complicated topic, involving post-colonialism, sledging, and media coverage. Stay with me.

The Shane Warne/Sourav Ganguly crisis folded just as quickly as it began, with each player handed out the requisite fee and slap on the wrist. The window was open long enough, however, for the 24-hour news channels in India to get their word out. Watch Times Now dissect the “scandal” in clear, India v. Australia terms:

There are a few problems here.

Stealing The Spirit: Ganguly/Warne (2)

In his very impressive rant against Sourav Ganguly, Shane Warne makes note of “that wall” that all the captains signed at the opening ceremony. Their signatures required them, he said, to act only within the “spirit of cricket,” a vague and almost empty concept that means everything to everybody, depending on perspective and, apparently, nationality.

At some level, we understand what it means, but only with specific concrete actions: standing too long after being dismissed; shouting verbally at another player; pointing at some pavilion. But, like the slippery debate over torture in America, that’s where the consensus ends, and the clashing dictionaries come out. How long does a batsman have to stand before they can be pulled up for dissent? How much (and with what words?) can a player swear at another before the match referee becomes involved?

Referees and authorities have inadvertently contributed to this muddle when they make it a point to punish only the worst offenders. Don’t get me wrong; rude behavior should not be tolerated, but players understand that they can get away with a lot before they will be fined. So, instead of going all out with their offenses, they plan smaller scrimmages, and referees, interested only in the really glaring stuff, let things slide. Consequently, we begin to split hairs and make a mockery of the spirit behind the rules.

The IPL, however, should not even have had that Orwellian “wall” signed anyway.

Warne Throws Ganguly a Flipper

I’ll have more to write about Shane Warne’s prodigious skills later, but he can talk a good game as well. Have a look at him lay his case against the ex-Indian captain:

This isn’t the first time that Ganguly has questioned a catch (he stood his ground against Ricky Ponting during that horrible Sydney Test), but the rules are apparently clear: you cannot ask an umpire to refer a catch upstairs; the umpire must make that decision himself. (Warne slips up a bit when he says that the “Indian umpire” caved; I’m not sure his ethnic background had anything to do with his decision.)

Here’s the catch in question, which looks good to me:

And finally, just note that once-favorites Kolkata has now lost three matches in a row, while Rajasthan hasn’t lost one since its first match. It’s a topsy-turvy world, this Twenty20.

For brief highlights of the match, watch below. The commentators are absolutely horrible and at a total loss for what they’re seeing: disorganized, inarticulate, and not at all informative.

Celebrity Culture: When Shah Rukh Khan Met Dhoni

During the 1990s, the Indian media would often speak of a thickening “nexus” between crime and politics, and Bollywood, and business, and so on. It was a maddeningly conspiratorial term, ominous sounding and yet  vaguely scientific, but it also perfectly describes the symbiotic relationship that Bollywood and the IPL have developed of late.

Anyone following Shah Rukh Khan’s career of late will know what shrewd marketing ploys the man has employed to buttress his own popularity, showing up early and often to any location featuring the Indian team (and, some said, earning the BCCI’s ire). With the IPL, however, the connection has become more explicit and mature: actors and actresses use cricket to heighten their popularity, while cricket franchises use celebrities’ brand names to inspire loyalty among fans who, ordinarily wouldn’t care one way or the other about Kolkata or Chennai’s scorecards.

It’s a win-win for the involved stars, but it’s still opportunistic and shady, not to mention a distraction from the real match at hand. The question of “branding” cricket obscures the actual cricket as cricketers — at least the Indians — become stars first, and players second. On endorsements everywhere, Indian cricketers spill into the Indian consciousness again and again, and I worry that the link between the sport and its audience will become mediated by something other than simply viewing a player’s bat hit another player’s ball. To some extent, that’s been this blog’s thesis all along (that cricket is more than cricket), but we’re talking about more than culture and history here. We’re talking manipulation. We used to use cricket as a focal point for our cultural neuroses, but now, the process has reversed itself, with cricket deciding what’s important to us. In other words, our cricketers have become media phenomenons, rather than sportsmen.

There are two residual dangers involved:

Mickey Arthur Can Cry Too

South Africa’s coach just joined the Harbhajan-Sreesanth controversy, but adds fewer than the entry fee’s required two cents. First, he notes that his team had several issues with both players, especially after Sreesanth abused De Villiers and Harbhajan went after that meekest of batsmen, Ashwell Prince. (The latter point is particularly distressing, since Prince is black, revealing a distressing pattern with Harbhajan.)

But Arthur should have uttered his points and left it at that. Instead, he has to go on about not being a “squealer,” and why he didn’t say anything before:

“At the end of the day, we are not squealers,” Arthur said. “We strongly believe that what happens on the field stays on it. Besides, we were very happy with the general spirit in which the series was played in, and we left with very pleasant memories of the tour, especially the cricket that was played.”

Well, let’s put aside the obvious contradiction here: Arthur says he’s not a squealer, just as he complains about the two players’ behavior. But that’s not what’s distressing: I don’t understand exactly why players should be treated as squealers for having a difficult time with another player’s on-field behavior.

Sreesanth Under The Scope

It’s pretty clear that Harbhajan is the villain in this spat (as he usually is): regardless of what Sreesanth said on the field or at the end of the match, he’s hardly deserving of a slap. (Incidentally, do grown men still slap each other? I thought that the closed fist was the preferred method of persuasion these days.)

Nevertheless, it appears that Sreesanth too will be questioned, for reasons not connected with this incident. Throughout the IPL tournament, the pacer has gone on over-drive with the unnecessary verbals and spats. I can’t blame him though: he rightly could argue that the IPL is not the ICC, and Twenty20 is not Test cricket. If you want the old gentlemanly stuff, then there’s no reason you should tune into a show that emphasizes entertainment over class and cheerleaders over balls (no offense, Uncle J Rod). So, go ahead and antagonize all the people you want, Sree: it’s all fair game now.

I’ll end this post, however, with a YouTube video showing a much-chastened Sreesanth avowing a new-found maturity.

Harbhajan Slaps Sreesanth (2)

Punjab won the latest match against the Mumbai Indians, but…what’s this? Sreesanth in tears? And Preity Zinta gives Brett Lee the hug? This is too, too hilarious for TV (and listen as the commentators have no idea what’s going on. “Hard to tell,” says the stodgy South African one.)

I think this shows, to some extent, the difference between the Indian and Australian dressing rooms. More than one observer has noted the strict hierarchy that exists in South Asian teams, with junior players required to slavishly do the seniors’ bidding. I think John Wright wrote about how amazed he was to find players scurrying around carrying tea and biscuits as the legends lazed about during team meetings.

There’s something about that here: Sreesanth, who is still in his early 20s, just got chided in public, and rather than being outright angry about it, he falls into himself, distraught and emotional. It reminds me of my days in all-boy Catholic schools in Bombay, when just a hint of reproach from older students would do enough to ruin your week. Even today, the media regularly reports incidents of “ragging” in universities, and the utter contempt with which younger students are treated, as the new India finds ever more ways to classify, divide, and exploit itself. (Perhaps that’s an over-reaction, but look at that boy’s tears!)

Harbhajan Slaps Sreesanth

Oh, the joy! Cricinfo has the latest on the stunning Harbhajan-Sreesanth incident, which left the fiery fast bowler in tears. Two of the team’s biggest douchebags at each other’s throats: God bless you, IPL.

I wonder what all those people who talked about “national honor” during the Sydney Test will say now. “Regional pride,” anyone?

IPL Roundups

I’m just about to go on a weekend break in the city, but I wouldn’t leave without first giving out a few hat-tips. In case you’re, say, not in India and haven’t subscribed to some ridiculously expensive cable package deal and can’t find news because of the news agency boycott — whew! — don’t sweat! Ducking Beamers can tell you where to go (other than here, of course) to get the latest: