Bob Woolmer
FROM THE PAVILION
Lance Klusener, our hero, and Guy Whittall from Zimbabwe have both been given suspended sentences for swearing at each other. Big deal!
If match referees had been in business in 1975, none of the Australian players would have played all year. I was fortunate enough to spend more than eight hours batting against Dennis Lillee, Jeff Thomson, and Max Walker, with Rodney Marsh and the Chappell brothers in the slips. It was a most interesting experience and there were moments where my birthright was questioned and the “F” word was in as liberal supply as the recent rain in Gauteng.
It was considered very much part of Test cricket and it has been discussed at many meetings and by the players. In fact in the Level IV course started in 1995, there was an hour devoted to learning to deal with sledging.
In this case, I believe Klusener retaliated verbally after he had been verbally abused when he departed in the game before. The difference was of course Klusener did not report the Zimbabweans, but kept his cool and just saw it as part of the game. Whittall obviously saw it differently and both got fined, cricket got a naughty boy story published and we all have something to write about.
Match referees have an unenviable portfolio, they are there to see that fair play exists and have a variety of other functions, like reporting on ground and practice facilities. One of their briefs is to make sure that cricket keeps its squeaky-clean tag. Which is rather like looking after the elephants in the Phinda game reserve! I am very much in favour of stopping players from giving a batsman who has just been dismissed the send-off – with finger, arm or verbally. To me this is inane. The guys should let him enjoy his shower.
However, I am sure gamesmanship, trying to unsettle a batsman, will continue. Some of the most terrible sledging had to be endured by Darryl Cullinan, when playing against the Australians, so much so that on his second trip to Australia, even the crowd joined in the yacking chorus. We were forced to drop our best player, against our better judgment, and suffered a defeat in the next game!
Batsmen should be allowed the opportunity to play in quiet conditions and the umpires must put a stop to vicious sledging. Players have to live with a modicum of banter, and the umpires must stop not only the amount of sledging, but also the bad nature of it.
Aggression is a key ingredient in a successful sportsman. Klusener gave an exhibition of aggression. However, we cannot continue to fool ourselves. The players are emotional people, they play an emotional game and yet the laws are rewritten year after year to stifle that emotion. The volcano will have to eventually erupt if it is as volatile as a cricket fast bowler is.
What is more disturbing is that cricket cannot keep rain off the pitch surface. Also that play cannot continue because there are one or two wet patches, which are dangerous and unplayable. Yet with all the scientific methods available to us, we cannot seem to dry out a surface or indeed are unable to keep it dry. Zimbabwe will have felt cheated out of an opportunity to get into the final, because the conditions for their last triangular series match against England were unfit for play.
Here we have people employed to check on the language and behaviour of the players, at times killing character, yet with all the technology available we cannot get two teams on to a cricket field when it stops raining.
I reckon spectators want characters in the game – the Ian Bothams and John McEnroes are legends in their own time – yet we cannot give the spectators
guaranteed cricket. The time has come for the technological gurus to find a balloon- type covering for the pitch and spectator areas so that cricket can maximise its appeal. At least then we are guaranteed some “hot air”.
ENDS