its just not cricket
The touring Indian cricket team lost, dramatically the other day. The match was seemingly heading for a draw, which, when I was younger was commonplace in cricket. These days it seems we must have a result, someone must win which of course means someone else loses. Winners and losers, no in between.
The nature of the game is simple enough at its heart, the steady rhythm of batting and bowling to each other interrupted by better displays of both, or in a statistical sense, deviations from the norm, good and bad. There is a third party to officiate who in this case seem to have lost the plot a little, but that has happened before in the game and surely will again. What was disappointing was, as the touring captain put it, that only one side seemed to play in the spirit of the game. The spirit of the game was a game between gentlemen, where they did their best and did it truly and honestly. Winning was a bi-product of good play and good luck, it was how you played that mattered. Sadly I agree that in one pivotal instance the character of the Australian team was found wanting and that they went on to win is a hollow victory that does much to damage the good character of the game.
It might only be a game, but it reflects on us all. Sport is often held up as a way of bringing international goodwill, we have seen how easily it can do the opposite.