The darker side of cricket

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)

‘Save Melbourne, target Brabourne’ seems to be the mantra of the Australian media. L Suresh reports.

“Silly us, here we were thinking Indian crowds making monkey gestures to Andrew Symonds was something that fell under the International Cricket Council's anti-racism code.” These are the opening lines of an article titled ‘India makes monkey of racism row’ by Peter Lalor, in The Australian. While adding that ‘Indian denials of the racist incident contain a number of lines of thought that range from ridiculous to ignorant’, he also goes on to say that “Indians claim that monkey chanting is unknown as a racist slur in this country.”

While monkey calls, hoots and references to various members of the simian family are commonplace in countries where racism is prevalent, despite what the Australian press thinks, it is uncommon in India. Monkey chants can be heard from errant schoolboys in classrooms, from Romeos hanging outside Mumbai locals, from little children visiting zoos and trying to excite the chimps, but it has never been heard inside a stadium. And with the ample coverage that the Vadodara incident received, it had to be tried out by some smart alec spectator. And that was what the world got to see at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.

“Soccer crowds are notorious for monkey chants to black players... It happened in April in Slovakia. It happens in Spain, Scotland, everywhere, apparently, but India. Rich and even lower middle-class Indians would know this. English soccer is a staple on television here.” Monkey chants to black players happens in Germany, Slovakia, Spain, Scotland, everywhere but India. True again. Perhaps things take time coming here - even American Idol’s Indian version took a couple of years coming to India. Perhaps in a few years, the lower middle-class will be hooked on to English football as well.

Raucous crowd behaviour is universal and India is no exception to it. There have been instances in the Asian countries when matches have been called off due to crowd disturbances. The third one-dayer between India and Pakistan in Karachi during the 1989-90 series was abandoned as the home team crumbled to 28 for 3 and the crowds decided that they would do a better job of ‘occupying the crease’. During the 1996 World Cup semi-finals, it was the turn of the Indian crowds to step in and control the proceedings at the Eden Gardens as India lost to Sri Lanka. A 90,000-strong crowd had to be evicted from the same venue during the Asian Test Championship in 1999, a because of rioting in the stadium.

There have been many more instances of bottles, orange peel, stones and worse thrown into grounds, of captains leading their teams off the field to safer parts of the stadium and of fielders patrolling the boundary ropes with helmets to avoid guided missiles from the stands. Such incidents are a result of a misplaced zeal for the game or a sense of frustration at seeing the home team fare poorly - but racism? That's a new one.

The standing ovation that the Pakistani team received at Chepauk in 1999 during its victory lap is still being talked about. The greatest cricketers of the world - Ian Botham, Vivian Richards, and more recently, the likes of Lara and Pieterson - have been the darlings of the crowds here. Even the likes of Miandad and Akram were respected for what they were and what they could do to us on their day.

That's the reason why the allegations of racism in the stands come as a surprise. Why would we do something like that? Most nations with a multiracial population have had to battle the issues of colour - and in cricket, it has been countries like Australia, South Africa and England that have had to tackle racism internally. Other cricketing nations – read Asian - have only been at the receiving end of all the barbs and attacks.

In India, being dark has, for long, seriously impacted marriages and career prospects in showbiz. This colour difference has even led to the north-south divide amongst certain sections of society, which, in sport, has given rise to several controversies relating to matters of selection, captaincy, posts and individual state associations. But never has it coloured the spirit with which spectators have watched the game.

So why did this series become the stage for all the key issues that Australia has been accused of so far? Be it on-field aggression, sledging or racism, seven one-day internationals ended up being the battleground for many concerns that we have never been associated with. And in a fortnight, the idiom 'pot calling the kettle black' virtually became a punctuation mark in all forms of media coverage of the current one day series. Enough and more images were played and replayed to rekindle public memory of Sharad Pawar's gentle send-off by Damien Martyn, of Amla's 'terrorist' epithet by Dean Jones, of McGrath's outburst targeted at Sarwan and of the Aussie crowds heckling every player who wasn't white.

According to Roshan Mahanama, an Australian player once referred to Sanath Jayasuriya as ‘black monkey’. How did the Australian media handle that one? John Rhodes, an ICC official was punched by a spectator in Melbourne because he was ‘accused’ of being South African. Darren Lehmann once referred to the Sri Lankan team using even more derogative language. The penalty? A five-match ban. Shouts of ‘black *****’, ‘kaffirs’ and ‘kaffir boeties’ were rampant in various stadiums during the South African tour in 2006. Reportedly, five spectators were ejected. So much for the power of five.

The fact that almost every country has suffered during a Down Under tour is a fact conveniently forgotten by Australian media as it furiously researches on facts on the 'Hindu monkey god' and of chants in Indian languages. Could this just be the Aussie way of taking the spotlight away from the ruckus that is likely to happen when Sri Lanka (and later India) tours Down Under?

On the field, Murali will be a threat to the Aussie batsmen with his indecipherable turn, but on the other side of the ropes, a horde of Aussie fans will pose a serious threat to him. They will not want him to overtake Warne's record and will possibly do anything to discourage him from doing that. Anything, from a chorus of 'no-ball' every time he comes in to bowl to racist chants. With ample precedents already having been set, attempts to control this crowd will be a near-impossible task. It is a laughable matter when Cricket Australia points to close circuit cameras that will catch people in action if and when they indulge in racist acts. When you can hear the shouts of 'no-ball' miles away from the stadium and yet cannot take on a 50,000-strong crowd, how will close circuit cameras help? Will the Australian authorities be able to take stringent action and forcibly remove a stadium full of people? Will they let a test match be played to empty stands, like we did in 1999?

The only way to get away from under the microscope is to shove something else under it. That's exactly what has happened now. Instead of debates on what is likely to happen in Australia in a few weeks, the cricketing world is agog with news of racism that is rampant across India and how it is doing the Mexican wave across stands in every stadium.

In a way, we helped them along the way in this shift in focus. With the Indians determined to match the Aussie aggression, the Australian team and the media screamed blue murder as they realized what was happening. For a whole week, cricket was forgotten and the sports pages were full of Sreesanth's hostility and Harbhajan's verbal war. That was the perfect opening for a coup. ‘Indian team, sledgers. Indian crowds, racist.’ The theme for the series was complete. And it has been well executed.

Andrew Symonds had fired the first salvo even before the series had begun about how India had gotten 'carried away with its Twenty20 celebrations' and how something had 'sparked inside him'. There could hardly have been a better way to spark off a controversy and provoke a billion-strong cricket following as they celebrated success that was coming their way after 24 long years. Then came those showdowns with Sreesanth, he of the an-eye-for-an-eye, a-stare-for-a-stare fame. Obviously, millions across the country have been following all of it. And have predictably sided with the home side. And so Symonds finds himself isolated for all the comments, catcalls, criticism - and the controversial monkey chants.

The whole Brabourne episode seems like nothing more than the outcome of the media coverage of ‘monkey business’ in the Vadodara match. A handful of spectators wanted to get on camera with what they thought would be a smart thing to do. Obviously they had no idea that for days after, they would still not come off the newspapers and news channels.

“INDIAN fans turned on Australia in Mumbai last night, bombarding all-rounder Andrew Symonds with graphic racial taunts and personal abuse” was how the Herald Sun put it. “A deafening torrent of abuse followed the batsman of the series out to the middle. Many spectators jumped up and down like gorillas, spewed vitriol and made animal noises.” Bombarded with graphic racial taunts. Many spectators jumping up and down like gorillas. Borrowing from Sunil Gavaskar’s comments on Matt Prior who was appealing endlessly during the England series, “Which game were they following?”

Racism is dirty business that only people with coloured minds and delusions of their own superiority indulge in. It is obvious that it has to be cleaned up whenever it rears its ugly head, wherever it is found. Only we are looking for it in the wrong places.

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement as 'Spectators will be spectators' on 28 October, 2007)