The Spirit of Cricket

To the outsider, cricket must appear one of the most incomprehensible sports ever invented.

For a start, there's the bewildering array of formats.

On the international stage, Test matches are played over five days; One Day matches play out - as the name suggests - in a single day; while TwentyTwenty games take just a few short hours to complete.

Yet another, shorter, format, The Hundred, was due to be introduced in the UK this summer - however, Covid-19 has put the entrance of this brash newcomer on indefinite hold.

To confuse matters even more, each cricket-playing country also has its own national leagues, and competitions - again split over the three variations.

However, because cricket is wonderfully nonsensical, there are subtle differences from country to country. In Australia, the focal point of the longer format is the Sheffield Shield, contested between six states, and where each match lasts four days.

Except for the Final, which lasts for five.

But, if the formats are mind-boggling, the rules of the sport are even more baffling.

All of the sport's variations share some common rules. For example, the ways in which a batsman can be dismissed are universal: Bowled; caught, run-out... and so on, and so on.

However, please don't ask me to explain Leg Before Wicket (LBW) - we'll be here all day.

But, then there are the differences.

Whereas One Day cricket has something called 'Powerplays', periods where there are limits as to where the captain can place their fielders, there is no such thing in Test Cricket. The captain can basically do what they like.

It's all utterly preposterous.

It's a sport where the players go off for 'bad light', even though the majority of grounds have floodlights that could easily be switched on.

It's a sport where everyone stops for lunch and tea.

It's a sport where one of the main weapons is 'swing movement' (which is when the ball, after it leaves the bowler's hands, instead of continuing on its normal trajectory and obeying the laws of physics, suddenly begins to arc either into, or away from, the batsman): A weapon which no-one has yet been able to find an adequate explanation for.

Even the finest proponents of the art of 'swing' bowling haven't got much of a clue why it happens. Atmospheric conditions are believed to play a part, as does the state of the ball itself. But the answers have never been entirely satisfactory.

And it's a sport where, in order to try and make the ball 'swing', a fielding team has - against both the rules and spirit of the game - smuggled sandpaper onto the pitch, in order to try and 'rough up' the ball.

Just for the record - the sandpaper worked: The ball started to move around corners. However, the three ringleaders of this farce also got caught and then banned.

However, it was that very incident that perhaps best encapsulates why I love this - often infuriating - sport.

For the uninitiated, this particular incident occurred during a Test Match in March 2018, when Australia toured South Africa. Seeking to gain an advantage over the Proteas, the Australian 'leadership group' instructed a junior member of the team to secret sandpaper in his pocket, and then use it to alter the condition of the ball, in the hope of making it 'swing.'

As I said it worked.

And then it didn't.

Given that this was a high-profile sporting fixture, and that everything the players did on the field was being covered by an army of television cameras, the perpetrators were either dangerously naive or downright stupid, in believing they'd pull this off without being caught. Either way, they didn't.

There was a touch of hypocrisy about the outpouring of indignation following the revelation.

Yes - the Australians had, deliberately, sought to change the condition of the ball: This qualifies as 'ball tampering', and is unequivocally against the rules. In short, they cheated.

However, at the same time, it was also common knowledge that, although this specific incident had taken ball tampering to an almost ridiculously, comical level, the Australians weren't alone in doing this. Unless they're chasing money, cricket administrators don't move quickly, and they certainly never had when it came to ball tampering. It had been going on for years.

Not to this extent, but this was merely an exaggeration of what had been happening since cricket was first played. An absurd escalation, granted. But, it definitely wasn't the first time a ball had been tampered with.

And, neither was it the first time that cricket had found itself mired in controversy in the modern age.

The list is, quite honestly, staggering.

Corruption... match-fixing... racism...

For a sport nominally played by gentlemen, it very often appears to be played by, and administrated over, a gang of rogues.

'Sandpaper Gate' was simply the latest episode.

And sympathy was in short supply by this point.

And, even less was on offer because it happened to be Australia in the middle of this storm.

The bottom line is that Australia were respected, but not adored.

By 2018, they were no longer the all-conquering power they'd been for decades. However, for most of my life, they had been astonishingly good. Whereas most other nations could boast one or two genuinely world-class players, for years Australia always had eleven. In fact, more: Even the replacements bought in for injured players were excellent.

And they consistently destroyed England. The only thing ever in question when my home nation used to play the team from Down Under was the scale of the defeat.

Thus, having suffered decades of sporting embarrassment, England fans could be forgiven for being overcome with schadenfreude at suddenly seeing their longtime tormentors embroiled in a mess entirely of their own making.

Also, there was a perception that the Aussies didn’t always play the game in the ‘right’ spirit. Cricket was supposed to be about 'fair play', a gentlemanly pursuit where the participants behaved with decorum and good grace. Meanwhile, Australian captains spoke of ‘mentally disintegrating’ the opposition.

And then there was the ‘sledging.’

This is where the fielding team make comments about, or even to, the batsman currently at the crease, with the aim of unsettling him. Some of these are simply hilarious. Not for the ears of children perhaps (the language is often 'colourful'), but many of them would shame a stand-up comedian.

Everyone in cricket sledges - having played the game for a number of years, I've been on the receiving end of more than a few (once, when batting, and struggling to score, a fielder once told me I'd put more people to sleep than Dignitas).

However, there was always a feeling that the Aussies took this too far.

With their talk of batsmen being physically harmed, and comments made on their opponent's mental health, lines had been crossed more than once.

Things get said in the heat of the moment, in the midst of combat. And, there's a reason why Test cricket is called a 'Test' - it's hard. It's brutal. And, my own countrymen have been guilty of straying into the realms of the unforgivable numerous times.

But, given the way the Australians had often conducted themselves on the field on the play up to this point, there was even less sympathy when the cameras picked up Cameron Bancroft and his sandpaper on that fateful day at Newlands two years ago.

Double schadenfreude.

However, it provided to be a blessing in disguise.

After the fines, and bans were handed out, and once the media circus had died down, people began talking about what was expected from our cricketers.

And the consensus was straightforward: victory was important, but how you attained that win mattered just as much.

Winning at all costs was no longer acceptable: the 'spirit' of cricket also had to be obeyed.

In fairness to the Australians involved in the sandpaper incident, they did a lot to push this issue to the foreground. They all admitted that they'd cheated, and deserve credit for facing up to that. But, just as clearly, they also acknowledged that their actions had brought the sport in disrepute: They'd not behaved in the 'spirit' of the game.

However, what is the 'spirit of cricket'? Lots of people suddenly appeared to be talking about it, but it was obvious that most didn't have a clue.

Well, the 'spirit of cricket' is, itself, actually relatively straightforward.

It's about honesty, and fair play - e.g. not cheating.

It's about respect for everyone involved, players and officials - e.g. not being abusive.

It's about not doing anything that could damage the reputation of the sport - e.g. smuggling sandpaper onto the field of play.

But, there's something else. Something far more important:

Everyone involved in cricket is responsible for upholding it. Yes - the majority of that burden falls on the shoulders of the high-profile, international stars who represent their countries.

However, we've all got a part to play. All of us have a duty to protect that spirit, and the game itself.

We are all custodians of the sport.

It doesn't matter whether you're one of the best batsmen in the world, with over 100 appearances for your country. Or someone like me, for whom scoring double-figures against a bowling attack consisting of an overweight accountant, and a geriatric schoolteacher is an achievement.

It doesn't matter whether you're coaching the England national team. Or trying to manage an underachieving village XI in some unpronounceable UK backwater.

All of us are bound by the 'spirit of cricket.'

It isn't just some ephemeral, outdated, imperialist concept: It's what binds the huge, global cricketing community together. It transcends national boundaries, and tribal loyalties, making us all part of something far bigger than ourselves.

And it matters.

It's what sets this sport apart from any other.

It’s what separates cricket from football. I adore soccer, but the play-acting, the abuse, the ticket prices, the nefarious owners, the wages... despite being billed as the ‘working class’ sport, there are times when football is about as relevant, and as accessible, to me as a night at the opera is.

That 'connection' linking me to everyone else in the world that worships cricket? It doesn't exist in football. The players do their thing, receive a King's Ransom in return, and I watch. That's it. There's not a 'spirit' binding us together. If anything, the disconnect between supporters, and their clubs is as great as it's ever been.

But, worst of all, as much as I still love football, it's also soulless, with a very questionable moral code.

Cricket, most definitely, has one.

Even now, it's not always adhered to. Last winter, an English player was verbally abusive to a member of the crowd whilst in South Africa. The provocation from the spectator was clear, but the batsman's response was shocking. As someone both representing his country and as a custodian of the game, he fell short.

But, admitting that he did, admitting that he didn't just let himself, and his country, down, but that he also failed the whole cricketing community, is an acknowledgement that he was part of something that transcends us all.

That incident, like the whole sandpaper one, was unsavoury. But, in encouraging people to discuss the 'Spirit of Cricket', and push the concept front and centre, back to where it belongs, events such as that have gone a long way towards cricket actually rediscovering its soul.

The modern game is still flawed.

Its administrators sometimes appear more interested in finding new ways to generate money, than actively protecting the long-term future of the game itself. Crowds for Test matches are dwindling due to the competition from their flashier, shorter counterparts, but almost nothing is being to done to safeguard the most sacred format of the game.

Too much power lies with boards of the 'big three' of India, England, and Australia, to the detriment of the other nations; whilst those three countries are in rude health on the pitch, and have money to spare, countries like the once mighty West Indies are practically broke, and struggling to entice people to both play and watch, the sport.

And, the sport's most famous figures still behave in ways that cause untold damage to both their personal reputations and to the game itself.

But...

The 'spirit' is there. It's back, and people are again aware of it.

And it's up to us all to foster and protect it.

Cricket is confusing and bizarre. Its customs and traditions are a dazzling mix of the ultra-conservative, and the distinctly modern. It can, at turns, be either infuriating or wondrous. Sometimes it's both at the same time.

But, at the very middle of it, is that 'spirit.' It's the beating heart.

It might have taken a piece of sandpaper to resuscitate it, but now it's pounding again, that 'spirit' has got to be nurtured and protected.

Because, in my eyes, it's that 'spirit' that makes this bewildering sport the greatest one that has ever been invented.

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