By Soroor Ahmed, TwoCircles.net,
India has, of late, joined the leading nation of the world in making school education somewhat easy and simple. Though the Human Resources Development minister, Kapil Sibal, has brought about some radical changes and removed the Class-X board examination of the CBSE it is still a long way to go. Efforts are on to adopt playway system of education at the lower-level of schooling.
These steps are largely appreciated as unnecessary pressure on children was wreaking havoc among them and reportedly driving many teenagers to suicide.
But may one ask as to what has prompted sports to become more serious than war––not to speak of education. After all games are best form of entertainment and people play or watch them to get relaxed. But, in this age of capitalism sports are causing more tension and rancour not only in the mind of players, but all those involved in it as well as those who watch it in the field or television sets.
If two teams play, one is bound to lose. This is the only logical conclusion. Sometimes it may end in draw (tie-up), but that is not possible in one-day version of cricket. This is not because one of them played badly but because another one played better. With Cricket World Cup going on in Indian sub-continent the corporate media, like always, has turned the entire country mad––no, crazy would sound as euphemism.
The Indian media has debated and criticized Indian captain Mahinder Singh Dhoni’s decision to give last over to Ashish Nehra against South Africa so much that there is every reason to suspect that there is certainly some ulterior motive behind this whole sinister campaign. Now the BCCI too had asked Dhoni to explain this action, when the truth is that many of the Board officials have hardly any idea about cricket. Like Sharad Pawar they only play politics.
This is height of absurdity. Those who have half-baked knowledge of cricket and its history have started using this game as their tool to promote their respective business as well as agenda. Their agents in the media––commentators, experts, reporters and ex-cricketers––are all paid to fill round-the-clock space for discussion on all the TV channels just for the sake of advertisements and related business. This sheer wastage of time and energy of the people, especially the youth and children need to be questioned.
Scoring 13 runs in the last over to win the match is not at all an impossible challenge. When One-Dayers were not so popular in 1980s and rules not so much in favour of batsmen England––most of the time considered weak team in comparison to Australia––scored 18 runs to snatch a match from the arch-rival. Alan Lamb, the English batsman, in fact scored these runs in just five balls.
Even in the first World Cup in 1975 West Indian wicket-keeper Dereck Murray and last batsman, Andy Roberts, shared the last wicket partnership of 60 runs to win the match against Pakistan with just one ball to spare. Roberts, known for his poor batting skill, went to score 26 not out and cross the target of 266. Would you believe that at one stage the West Indies of that great era was 166 for eight.
Pakistani batsman Javed Miandad hit last ball six to ensure victory for Pakistan in 1986. Not only that, Pakistan won this match by one wicket when they were eight down for 137, still 100 runs away from victory. The bowler, who was hit for six was Chetan Sharma, who continued to play cricket even after that eventful delivery. Sometimes he is still hired as expert.
Not only that India won the first Twenty-20 World Cup Final by defeating Pakistan in the last over. Misbah-ul-Haque, the man in form, was caught at deep while repeating Javed Miandad’s performance. He chose to hit out relatively new bowler, Joginder Sharma, who after a few months sank into oblivion. A couple of years later nobody knows him. Had that catch been taken Pakistan would have won. Similarly, had Miandad failed to hit that six in 1986 India would have won.
This is sports and should be treated as such. But the corporate bosses, the match-fixers and betting mafia, who actually play the matches without taking to the field, have made the whole business extremely nasty, especially in the sub-continent. They have hijacked the game of cricket. It is at their instigation that mob turn violent and start targeting houses of players when the country loses any match.
True Nehra’s over cost 13 runs but after all it was not a semi-final or final match. If at this stage unnecessary pressure is being created then the players are bound to lose heart. After all in the last couple of years Nehra had ensured three victories in the last over and has been playing for the last over a decade.
The big question is if education can be regulated, controlled and given direction why is it that sports have been left unbridled. The Sports Minister has no role except to build stadiums. He cannot even check the illegal betting and match-fixing. The main stake-holder of the Royal Challengers Bangalore, Vijay Mallya, can pull up Rahul Dravid after he lost an IPL match but the Prime Minister of the country cannot dare to say anything on any illegal business going on in the name of sports. This is not democracy but plutocracy where the stranglehold of the rich corporate bosses over the games have rendered even powers that be powerless.
The rulers of the country are simply playing into their hands as was quite evident during the recent Commonwealth Games. In the electricity-starved country the government has been compelled to build huge floodlights for day-night matches for months together. No this is not for the occasional events like CWG or World Cup. We witness sheer wastage of electricity for months together for the IPL matches every year, yet our farmers would cry for power to irrigate land and school children would go to bed without studying as they have no light after the sunset. But if you have some money watch boring matches of IPL, most of them said to be fixed by the criminals and mafia-gangs.
After all sports is more serious than education.