Is sport or for that matter cricket an alternative for war?

Given all the controversy related to sledging it seems like the white in our game is fading away – not just from flannels but from its fabric itself.

Sport- a great leveler has been a fantastic forum and medium to promote and propagate the ideals of brotherhood and oneness of humanity. It is indeed a sorry state when terms like “warfare”, “tussle”, “avenge” find place in the jargon that one would associate with sport and cricket seems to be no exception.

Is sport or for that matter cricket an alternative for war? In our attempt to exploit the avenues for entertainment, we have forgotten that at its best, cricket is a glorious arena to drench the hordes of men and women following it in showers of unabashed joy and the pristine spirit of fair competition.

Sport isn’t war and certainly not its synonym

In an essentially non-contact sport as cricket, it’s intriguing to note how needless aggression has found its way through the crevices in the system and now threatens to mar the game’s image.

Given the massive penetration that media has made into society, it makes it so much more important that the officials, the players, the media personnel and also the audiences believe that they are custodians of a truly beautiful game and hold it and its reputation close to their hearts and with high regard. It is certainly a challenge in this day and age when each of their actions is subject to intense scrutiny.

While it is understandable that in the heat of the moment, players do get carried away and end up saying and doing things that have no place on the field of play, it is sad that such actions are glorified by onlookers and the people that make a living by selling the game.

Each one of us loves to see a great match, a tussle between “bat” and “ball” – demonstrations of skill by the players, but we need to educate ourselves to appreciate only the “virtuous” facets of these grueling contests. Drama in cricket is great, it adds to its folklore, it smears its colours on the epitaphs of players and wins them glorious thrones in cricket’s hall of fame. But these were essentially great cricketers- colossal figures that were benchmarks for the rest to emulate in terms of their skills and conduct.

Demonstrating aggression

Does one player questioning an opponent’s parentage or race have anything to do with cricket? Forget cricket, does it have a place in the modern world? What is a win that comes from losing respect and being outright disgraceful? Why do we love to see cricketers as gladiators?

Why do players HAVE to demonstrate aggression and why is it then that such an occurrence is captured by lensmen, spoken about by columnists and repeatedly telecast on prime time? We certainly don’t want to rid the game of emotions but should we demonize it?

It is worrisome that a large chunk of cricket is captured in this shameless portrayal of brute force and tongue lashing, the happenings of such nature being narrated to future generations. Sledging or anything that propagates unhealthy tendencies in the garb of fierce competition has to be weeded out of our game.

Sport is like an infant. It is pristine; it is simple and just like how an infant would have had all its family consumed by its beauty, sport has its fraternity madly in love with it. Cricket does that to us.