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Racism and cricket Down Under
Better run, better take cover
By Ishani Ranasinghe and Marisa de Silva
Cricket - a gentleman's game or so the cliché goes……..but, in Australia, the Sri Lankan team was abused, vilified and almost spat upon (maybe not literally spat upon but figuratively yes.) Darrel Lehman was slapped a five match ban for calling the Sri Lankan's black c----'s on his way to the dressing room, but the Sri Lankan team management demurred, and didn't even ask for an inquiry. Muttiah Muralithran in the meantime says he will reconsider touring Australia, after he was subject to constant crowd taunts when fielding near the boundary line.

As Muralithran suggests, should we tour Australia at all? Why should the nation's image, and our collective national pride suffer just because of cricket? In other words, should we go down under for cricket's sake?

Think about it, says Romesh Kaluwitharana, star wicketkeeper in our World Cup winning squad of ’97. Says he: "We should remember the days when we were just coming up in the cricketing world, Australia was one of the few countries that gave us the exposure we needed.

Incidents like this may have happened back then too, but as we were not in position to make demands, it may have been swept under the carpet". 'I don't think just because of a few individuals we should stop playing in certain countries. Cricket is a lovely game and the individuals who ruin the game should be aptly punished. Sledging happens now -- but when it comes to racially motivated taunts, it is hard not to take these personally,'' he says.

Should we tour big bad Australia or not?

Says Ranjith Fernando, ex all Ceylon cricketer and cricket commentator: "As for touring abroad we shouldn't let a few 'bad eggs' sully the image of an entire nation, therefore we should continue to play our game as best as we can and leave the rest to the authorities. As for the authorities, they should come out strongly on these issues and hand out just reprimands to guilty parties. Pointing fingers at any one country is unfair."

Should we let the Aussies continue to humiliate us -- shouldn't we tell them to hang their cricket, and stop going there at all? When we asked pugnacious author Jean Arasanayagam she said:

"We should always be strong and go forward. We can't retreat, we must have courage and not be defeated by verbal barrages or racist comments. If you believe in yourself, you win the day. Don't ever let yourself be put down, overcome all odds and be the best you can be, is my credo in life. "

How about sports lovers, ordinary blokes and lasses? Should we tour Australia or not? Keshanee Gunawardena (19, student) says 'Racism is not something the game of cricket needs at any level. It shouldn't come into play. We should not let one comment put us down and not play in Aussie again. We should continue to play there.' Dinuksher Wattegama (22) claims that 'our guys' should have more of a competitive frame of mind and be more aggressive in handling issues like this. . "We shouldn't even think of backing down and not touring the West. "Our best response to racial prejudice should be through good performances, especially on fast pitches" he says . Yohan de Silva (28), Law student says "Not touring particular countries due to this issue is absurd. They should learn to take the good together with the bad and be strong to overcome whatever obstacles come in their way.''

Kimara Perera (30), a successful Architect says, "an entire new attitude must be adapted by the law makers of the game and issues like this should be taken more seriously.'' That seems to be the refrain. We should tour Australia, they all say. But, we should see that this nonsense must stop first, and that's upto the lawmakers of the game.Some say that racism is some temporary insanity that troubles a fair man. But we should not be fooled. Racism manifests itself in different forms across the world, and its justification is a far worse crime than the original.

Cricket unites… Racism divides…
What doesn't seem to be realised is that commentators influence millions of people across the world so, they should be responsible in terms of what they say because it could have a large impact on the viewers. What might be taken lightly by the commentators, could well be interpreted in a totally different manner by viewers, and hence sensible and impartial commentating should be made compulsory in all sports and must be insisted on by the authorities.

Insistence on a combination of commentators from both the east and the west, especially in matches vs. the two parts of the world, could be an apt compromise. A writer who goes under the description Man at Gully wrote sometime after a series in Colombo: Justice was not only not done by the British commentators in this series, it didn't appear to be done at all. Ian Botham, a cricketer who is remembered as a rambunctious unruly and un-gentlemanly player who set the trend of "victory at any cost'' in his salad days as a cricketer, is fond of giving lessons on "the spirit of the game.'' Inference being that the spirit of the game is being violated by the Sri Lankan cricketers However, if there was an award for violating the spirit of the game from the other side of the boundary line, Botham will surely be Man of the Match and an Oscar recipient all rolled in one. Count David Lloyd and the other what's his name as runners up.

If a close-call decision has favoured the English, there are no replays. But if one has favoured Sri Lanka, all hell breaks loose in the Botham's barracks. The army goes berserk, and there is whining about "the spirit of the game'' and the innuendo that furthers the general British construct, which is that there is a "massive Lankan conspiracy to deprive Hussein and his world class team of their obvious victory. ''At least in the commentary box it is, and it is so blatant that "conspiracy'' is the wrong word - it is a heist and a hijack. Botham and his broadcasters have taken over the commentary box, and are running a propaganda campaign for their country that would have made Goebells blush. Though the match is played on the cricket fields, if it's not cricket on the airwaves, it's not cricket for millions of viewers.

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