When cricket was banned

S Pathiravitana

Lovers of cricket (mostly those living abroad) tend to ask the question where is the 'Gentlemen's' game heading? Or to put the question differently, is the fever of the football crowds spreading to the cricket crowds too? There was a time when cricket's crowds were a silently appreciative lot rather than boisterously enjoying the finer points of the gentleman's game. A good performance from either of the teams would earn a silent approval with a verbal comment sometimes like 'Well done, Sir' especially by those enjoying the shelter of the MCC's pavilion. But for some time now even the players participating in the game of cricket have started displaying an extraordinary exuberance in victory that oversteps the bounds of valour and even decency.

I am thinking mostly of bowlers who demonstrate their feelings openly whenever they get a wicket, particularly the ones who shake an ugly fist venomously over their victim's downfall. This exuberant but uncouth behaviour is only of recent vintage, I believe. This may be tolerated by a certain class of people but obviously not by gentlemen participating in the 'Gentleman's' game. Some years ago I remember reading in the London Times a disapproving comment on the wild enthusiasm and the 'celebrations' taking place whenever wickets fall. The commentator was saying that that kind of behaviour is a recent phenomenon and probably influenced by football players who celebrate their victories boisterously on the football field each time a goal is scored.

If the ICC is quick to move when Asian bowlers in particular are accused of having suspected bowling actions, I don't see why it cannot move as quickly to check the hostile conduct of some Australian spectators bent on upsetting the performances of key players. I heard a Sri Lankan commentator, Mahinda Wijesingha, taking up this question during a VB tourney in Australia when a rookie South African bowler was 'no-balled' repeatedly each time he came to bowl. He suggested that the public address system be used to warn the public that anyone making a public nuisance of himself could be evicted from the grounds.

Or still better, as an Australian spectator suggested (now that nearly everybody carries a mobile phone) why not, ask the authorities to announce an SMS number which can be contacted to draw their attention to the spectators who make a public nuisance of themselves. In this instance a father annoyed with the behaviour of some drunken teenagers who were taunting our players by addressing them in filth and calling them 'darkies' that he moved out of that place with his nine year old son. He said that he had over the years watched a number of matches both cricket and football, sipping many beers but cannot recall any such scenes remotely as objectionable as he saw at this match.

An elderly person who stood up and asked these hooligans to shut up was promptly blasted by more epithets of the filthy sort for about ten minutes, effectively silencing any more who wished to object.

Historically speaking, at one stage cricket became very unpopular in England all because of this kind of unruly behaviour by the spectators and the players. It also led to gambling and the laying of side bets and possibly of matches being thrown. It became such a public nuisance that in the 14th and 15th centuries the game called 'cricke' played on the village greens of 'England's green and pleasant land' had to be banned. 'Severe penalties were imposed on anyone owning equipment and sponsoring matches.'

It was not really to uplift British morality that the bans were imposed. There was a sounder and more practical reason for this. Both the barons and the monarch found that the week-ends of English summers were being occupied by this game of 'cricke' or 'creagh' as it was then known to the disadvantage of archery. At that time England needed more and more archers not bowlers or batsmen. For archery was the military force of the barons and the monarch and they did not want their able bodied men to waste their week-ends by running around with bats and balls, they wanted them to be practising their archery in preparation for their foreign forays.

Cricket, however, did not go into a decline after that. It led a kind of furtive existence and became the occupation of 'idlers, gamblers and dissolute characters.' The churches also fulminated against the game because it bred these unsavoury types. But a curious turn of events brought back the game into popularity. It happened in the time of Oliver Cromwell, a puritan, who played a big role in removing Charles the first from his throne. When the monarchy fell and the Cavaliers, who were the 'gentlemen' supporters of the monarch, went into exile, they took a liking to the game of cricket and became its unofficial patrons when the monarchy was restored.

Nevertheless, it took a long time for cricket to become the popular game that it is today. Not until 1787 was there a body formed to organise the game as a national sport in England, for that was the year when the Marylebone Cricket Club was formed and rules of the game set down. Some of these rules have persisted to this day and some have given way conceding to the social changes of British society. An interesting feature of English cricket was the division of English cricketers into two classes - the Gentlemen and the Players. The Players were those who were paid to play and the Gentlemen played for fun and not for pelf. That division has disappeared now.

The pavilion being the preserve of the Gentlemen, the Players could not use its main entrance. Players entering the pavilion had to use the back entrance, which was the one open to tradesmen. The cricket season usually ended with a Gentlemen v Players cricket match. This has been discontinued from 1962 But to come back to the eruption of rowdyism in the 21st century of Britain, it is incomprehensible in many ways how when we consider the advance and progress we have made in our material resources in contrast to the calamitous decline we have achieved in human action and behaviour, mostly created by a new species known as the yobs.

While leafing through the pages of the New Shorter Oxford Dictionary I came across this entry: Yob. Back slang for boy. Orig. a boy. now an uncouth, loutish, ignorant youth or man, esp. one given to violent or aggressive behaviour, a hooligan. There was a helpful quote included to round off this definition extracted from a publication called Railnews. It said: Beer swilling, transistor blaring yobboes heading for football troubles. Now we can see how the blessings provided by the Consumer age, after our heavy dependence on materialism, are coming home to roost.

I also read in a newspaper the other day how Britain spends £29 billion annually to provide children with electronic knick knacks. When children grow up under these conditions they have a greater chance of flowering into yobs or yobboes well beyond the expectations of all parents.